Amazon No Longer Sells Subscriptions to Print and Kindle Magazines, Newspapers

Amazon decided to stop selling print and Kindle magazine and newspaper subscriptions.

The announcement(Opens in a new window) seemed to go mostly unnoticed last week, when Amazon turned off Kindle Newsstand and print magazine subscription orders on March 9. The ability to renew annual Kindle Newsstand or print subscriptions was also removed. Now a banner appears at the top of the Kindle Newsstand page(Opens in a new window) making it clear that subscriptions are gone.

When asked by The Verge(Opens in a new window), Amazon spokesperson Julia Lee explained the decision:

“As part of our annual operating planning review process, we always look at each of our businesses and what we believe we should change … Following an assessment of our magazine and newspaper subscriptions and single-issue sales, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue these services. We don’t take these decisions lightly and are winding down these offerings in a phased manner over several months. We will continue to support customers, sellers and publishers during that time.”

Amazon shared some other key dates for those affected by this decision. The next one is June 5, after which point print magazine subscriptions can’t be managed through Amazon anymore. Instead, “all customer service inquiries for any remaining active subscriptions will be serviced directly by the publisher.” Amazon is promising to share more details about this ahead of the cutoff date.

On Sept. 4, monthly Kindle Newsstand subscriptions can no longer be renewed through Amazon, but it’s possible to continue reading the issues already delivered to you. Annual subscribers will only continue to receive new issues until Sept. 4 unless their subscription ends before then. Amazon will issue a pro-rated refund for any undelivered issues remaining in your Kindle subscription after the Sept. 4 cutoff date.

Some digital magazine subscriptions will continue to be offered through Kindle Unlimited(Opens in a new window), but for everything else Amazon is pushing customers to subscribe directly through publisher websites instead and will provide details on how to go about doing that through the “Your Memberships and Subscriptions(Opens in a new window)” page.

Hands On With the Amazon Astro