Amazon renames its DIY Kindle publishing platform to attract more content

Amazon on Friday announced that its Kindle Digital Text Platform, or DTP, will be renamed Kindle Direct Publishing. All other aspects of the self-publishing platform appear to remain unchanged.

One year ago, Amazon launched Kindle DTP in more than one hundred countries worldwide, pushing Amazon's proprietary Kindle e-book format into the hands of independent publishers and content creators who might otherwise have considered publishing their materials on a more open format, like ePub, which Barnes & Noble's Pubit! self publishing platform uses for creating Nook-compatible e-books.

Since launching its self publishing platform, Amazon has set the precedent for royalties for self-published books and periodicals on e-readers, and has redefined what counts as literature when it's destined for consumption only on digital screens and not in print.

So with a new, somewhat more concise name, Kindle Direct Publishing will continue its attempts to get independent and self-publishers to consider the Kindle as a primary outlet for releasing their e-books.

What remains to be seen, however, is which platform independent publishers have been choosing to release their e-books upon first, and how their choice affects the accessability of their materials, especially to public libraries.

An insightful blog post from librarian and author Meredith Farkas this week said, "There's no doubt at this point: e-books do have a real place in the future of reading. Unfortunately, the way most people are using eBooks at this point completely bypasses the library, and this is what publishers and ebook manufacturers seem to want. Why wouldn't they?"