Streaming books: confluencers, Kindle Unlimited and the platform imaginary

Abstract

The Kindle’s 2007 launch transformed one of the oldest breeds of creative workers—authors—into one of the newest: platformized cultural producers. Although most research on such workers focuses on careers birthed by social media (i.e., influencers, YouTube creators), many cultural producers work in legacy industries where traditional and platformized practices coexist, come together and influence each other (i.e., publishing, music, film). Both groups—born-digital and “confluencers”—must negotiate precarious labor conditions, but confluencers can draw on both digital and pre-digital networks and traditions to do so. This project shows how one such group—indie romance authors—draws on its history to create collective imaginaries regarding Kindle Unlimited (KU). These imaginaries offer an emergent, if weak, base of resistance to Amazon’s platform power. I contribute to literature on platformized cultural production by: (a) distinguishing among groups of platformized producers; and (b) showing how historic context informs strategies for negotiating platform power.