This is anser to a question from the I.D. - That Indestructible Something printing thred. I decided to post it in a new thread, since I think the discussion is important and deserves a one on its own.

7810172
I am with you that publishing on Amazon with an ISBN is more risky. At least two other authors have published there as well, as far as I know.

The author Goldfur has been published on amazon for quite a long time. In total you could buy 12 different books which were published throughout nearly a decade. The first fanfic Change of Life was published in 29.12.2013 and the last Beginning Anew was published in 11.11.2022. And by the looks of it, they were resabel successful. For reference there are 84 star reviews spread out over all 12 books. Of thoughts reviews the majority is 5 stars. The links to all the books and stories can be found at the bottom of the print on demand list in this group. ^c^

The other author I know of who has published on Amazon is called Hap Lea.
He has published three books (amazon Links):

• Princesses of Equestria
• Princesses of Equestria: The Elements of Harmony
• Princesses of Equestria: King of Shadows

As far as I know none of these stories are accessible for free on the internet. This is also the reason why the tree stories are not included in the print on demand list in this group. I think that the author had a vendor table at TrotCon Online in July 2021. Because of this I was able to contact him through Discord and ask a few about the printings. I include information about the discussion in the next comment.

What is the opinion from you and others? Should I add the tree stories in the print on demand list?

Themisto:
Hi, are the stories of your G4 Prequel Trilogy on fimfiction or on another online site freely available? If so, what are the links? I am one of the admins of the Printed Fiction Hardcopies group on fimfiction. We have a list of over 100 print on demand mlp fanfics. And I might add yours as well. ^^

Hap Lea:
The Prequel Trilogy is under agreement to never be placed on Fimfiction or any other sites where fan fiction resides.

Okay, an agreement? Has this to do with the ISBN? This is highly unusual.
All of the fanfics on the list have a free online presence as well. Though only one author has his books besides you on amazon. Might be this the reason?

[...]

Hasbro has known about the Prequels since the second book was complete. Under agreement between Hasbro and me, I was allowed to complete the trilogy, however I must never post the Books on Fimfiction and they won't acknowledge the books, but they did like the story none-the-less. 
For that reason I have decided to let the fans of the show and the Show's creator, Lauren Faust be the final verdict on if the Prequel Trilogy is canon or not. How the story is told, is done the way Lauren originally wanted the show to go down. So think of the Prequel Trilogy as the Fantasy Adventure from the past and it is Celestia and Luna's story where the Show is more Hasbro and Twilight's story. 

Ok, nice to know that you were able to make an agreement with Hasbro.

Hasbro has their moments. Maybe further down the road  they'll change their minds, but until then I'll take what was given. 

Continuing the discussion, I found out that only the third book (King of Shadows) was supposed to be available as a paperback. The first two books were planned to be released in the future as a paperback. But through a mistake they were published with a temporary cover anyway. When I asked if he plan on changing the cover he said:

Do you plan on changing the covers of book 1 and 2 when they are released as a paperback?

Not unless I want Hasbro assassinating me. I already poked them with the third book and that was only because it felt right for the finale to be given a proper cover.

7810251
Huh. Hasbro has a soul after all. This is good to know going forward and I thank you for the info.

7810267
You are welcome. Though I think that this information is perhaps a bit outdated. My guess is that agreement was reached before 03.09.2018, where the third book Princesses of Equestria: King of Shadows was published on Amazon. Since then Hasbro might have changed its opinion.

If you would like to get more information about publishing fanfiction, I can recommend the recording of a Trotcon 2022 panel. There the author Fiura talks about her experience with publishing fanfiction. She has for example won a legal battle against Hasbro and Befesta between October 2018 and Feb 2019. Now her fanfiction Fallout Equestria: Dead Tree is classified a Legal Parody based upon Fallout 4 & MLP:FiM.

By the way, I really love your big catalog of Fanfiction reviews. I often use them to diced if I should start a new story.

Edit: I now decided to add the three Princesses of Equestria books in the Print on Demand (Rated T and under) list.