If you’ve been dying to get a copy of “Yoga Basics Plus” onto your Kindle, you may soon have only one or two versions to choose from, rather than the 21 currently available on Amazon. The ecommerce giant has begun removing “private-label” ebooks, which are books that anyone can republish after paying a small fee for the rights.

Amazon has begun notifying publishers that books that are “either undifferentiated or barely differentiated from an existing title” will be removed from the Kindle store. The letter, as posted by one publisher, warns:

We’re contacting you regarding books you recently submitted via Kindle Direct Publishing.

Certain of these books are either undifferentiated or barely differentiated from an existing title in the Kindle store. We remove such duplicate (or near duplicate) versions of the same book because they diminish the experience for customers. We notify you each time a book is removed, along with the specific book(s) and reason for removal.

In addition to removing duplicate books from the Kindle store, please note that if you attempt to sell multiple copies or undifferentiated versions of the same book from your account, we may terminate your account.

The publisher, who goes by the handle brobdingnagian on the Warrior Forum Internet marketing site, had 22 private-label rights (PLR) books on Amazon, which brought in about $60 over two-and-a-half months. His new game plan:

I’m going to continue to use PLR as an idea base for my ebooks. There’s a lot of great PLR material out there, but you have to be a good enough writer to be able to put it all into your own words. Amazon craves unique content for its customers, not a bunch of recycled crap!

All My Amazon eBooks Have Been Taken Off the Shelf! [Warrior Forum via Ars Technica]

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