Kindle Direct Publishing, the platform used for publishing digital books to Amazon’s stores, has recently made changes to the way borrows are calculated through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program (for the purposes of compensating authors). While reviewing these changes, I noticed an alarming clarification in the way ebooks are presented to readers on Kindle:

Amazon typically sets SRL at chapter 1 so readers can start reading the core content of your book as soon as they open it.

The “SRL” is the Start Reading Location. It’s unfortunate that Amazon has chosen to automatically set the SRL to Chapter 1 as many, many books begin with a prologue. Two of mine do: The Prophecy (Daughters of the People, Book 1) and Say Yes (A Sons of the People Novel). And, of course, the Daughters of the People omnibus begins with The Prophecy‘s prologue, an essential element on which the entire series arc rests.

I’ve contacted KDP support about this issue and asked them to change the SRLs of those three books to the prologues. They’re stalling, although I hope they will eventually fix this problem in every ebook. Otherwise, they’re depriving their customers of whole chunks of the books readers purchase through Amazon. Given the Zon’s customer-centric approach, I doubt that was an intended byproduct of their policy on SRLs.

If you’re reading on Kindle, please be aware of the SRL limitation and act accordingly. Back the ebook up to the beginning and make sure there isn’t a prologue, not just for my stories, but for any you read. That way, you won’t miss a single, scintillating detail.