Amazon, Books, and Change

October 28, 2011

Amazon’s recent pre-release sales campaign for the not-yet-here Kindle Fire, with a price below most expectations, has created a lot of buzz around the company’s digital publishing aspect.

However, Amazon is going far beyond just eBook publishing: the company is becoming a major publisher in its own right. Features such as AmazonEncore, which uses customer reviews on Amazon websites to predict what products could potentially have greater sales, and imprints such as Powered by Amazon (short books) and 47North (science fiction,) the company is on the right route. We learn more in TechDirt’s article, “Does Amazon Want to Monopolize the Entire Publishing Chain?”

[Amazon]’s hired Larry Kirshbaum, a literary agent and the former CEO of Time Warner Publishing Group (now Hachette Book Group), to start a general trade imprint. Until now, Amazon’s imprints have focused on genre fiction like mystery and romance. By hiring a high-profile industry veteran to focus on “quality books in literary and commercial fiction, business and general nonfiction”—and by releasing those books in both print and digital formats—Amazon is announcing itself as a serious competitor against the “big six” traditional trade publishing houses.

This move, in addition to Amazon’s imprints and the spread of Kindle e-readers, the company is quickly becoming a global publishing company. Amazon could very easily take over traditional publishers because of its distribution possibilities. The way things are looking, it doesn’t seem like Amazon wants to simply become part of the traditional publishing chain. Amazon is on the right track to take over the entire publishing chain.

As our beloved goose-like publisher says, “Online services are potential monopolies.” If Stephen E Arnold is correct, then Amazon is going to be chasing Cornelius Vanderbilt’s achievement. The fellow did pay for Grand Central Station himself I believe.

Andrea Hayden, October 28, 2011

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.