Rings of Power is not a LotR Prequel, According to Producer
Well, given all the liberties, and that's putting it mildly, which The Rings of Power took with the lore of Tolkien's books it is quite nice to see the showrunners admit that their show takes place in some sort of an alternate timeline…
Except that none of the showrunners did that. While the show's producer Lindsey Weber indeed said that she doesn't consider her series a prequel when she was on Deadline's Hero Nation podcast on September 2, the day The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered on Prime Video, she meant quite a different thing. She considers The Rings of Power a standalone story that just happens to take place prior to subsequent stories, taking place in the same world, rather than prequel proper, which directly feeds into another story.
"The first thing I would say is that we don't really think of it as a prequel, though it is before," Weber said. "Something about the word prequel seems to suggest you need to know what comes later to appreciate it. It's sort of like an appendage to a pre-existing thing and we don't feel that way about this."
So, while The Rings of Power is dealing with Sauron, Galadriel, orcs, and forging of the titular rings of power, including, eventually, The One Ring, so central to the whole story of The Lord of the Rings, the important difference to Weber is that anyone can watch The Rings of Power, without necessarily being familiar with stories that come chronologically later.
"This is a story that you can appreciate," she said. "If you've not read the books, if you've not seen the movies, there is an on-ramp for you. This could be your first introduction to Middle-earth and we would be honored if it does become that for people and it winds up turning people on to read the books. It would be a thrill for us."
Maybe it would. Whether The Rings of Power would be even remotely noticeable or appealing to broad audience without the show's association with Tolkien's book or Jackson's movies is the question.