With so many different companies jumping on the e-reader bandwagon, it might seem as if Amazon (AMZN) will have to share its dominant digital market space with fellow behemoths like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Barnes & Noble (BKS). But anyone who thought the online retailer might not be keeping up on the device front is missing crucial elements of Amazon's long-term strategy. The company has bigger plans in store, and the most recent moves might qualify as "game-changing," that over-used but still meaningful expression.
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Amazon has had its own publishing imprint, AmazonEncore, for a little more than a year. Until now it has primarily worked with new writers who had self-published or gone through on-demand services (like Amazon's own CreateSpace), as well as writers looking to republish out-of-print works. Encore's publishing output to date has been fairly limited, including Nick Nolan's comic coming-of-age novels Strings Attached and Double Bound and Eric Kraft's Herb 'n Lorna, the first Peter LeRoy novel originally published in 1988. Encore operates akin to a typical trade publishing imprint in that work is acquired, edited and published. There are two key differences: one is that Encore incorporates reactions from Amazon's customer base as part of its decision-making; the other is that Encore titles are often released as Kindle books first, trade paperbacks later on.
Starting this week, you're going to hear a whole lot more about Encore. On Monday, the imprint announced that it would publish an original novel by mystery and thriller writer J.A. Konrath. On the one hand, the news wasn't a big surprise, as Konrath has published several books exclusively for the Kindle and, according to his projections, is on track to make a low six-figure income from e-books alone. What raised some eyebrows is that the novel, Shaken, is the seventh in Konrath's Jack Daniels detective series - discontinued by Konrath's original publisher Hyperion and not picked up by other trade publishers despite escalating sales for each installment.
Source: Daily Finance
Sarah Weinman covers the publishing industry for DailyFinance. She also writes monthly crime fiction columns for the Los Angeles Times and the Barnes & Noble Review, and contributes to The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Maclean's, and New Hampshire Public Radio's "Word of Mouth."
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