Amazon Publishing / AmazonEncore / Montlake Romance

[Publisher] AmazonEncore

JA Konrath was passed over by his NY house and went to Amazon to "self publish" instead.

I'm seeing writers on other boards think this is the fabulous new direction that will revolutionize the industry and bring the Big Change that people think is needed.

Me, I'm not seeing anything different. It's self publishing along the lines of Lulu. No vetting process that I can find, I'm not sure how much editing they offer, and your book will be available on AMAZON!

Um. Yeah. Everyone's is. Except this time, it's only on Amazon. At least most other self and indie pubs have your book on their own site as well.

I'm not convinced this is anything different than what we've already seen. I'm not sure of the ethics of a retailer (since Amazon's a retailer not a distributor) getting into publishing. Seems like a set up for an author mill to me.

And this

Amazon will use information such as customer reviews on Amazon.com to identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors with more potential than their sales may indicate. Amazon will then partner with the authors to re-introduce their books to readers through marketing support and distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon.com Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, Audible.com,

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puts me in mind of DellArte's promise that the best books will be picked up by Harlequin. Yes, I know Amazon's not charging money, instead they're offering to promote your already selling book.

I know a lot of people already have a great big hate-on for Amazon, but that aside, what are your thoughts on them as a publisher?

Is this Amazon Encore? Because there's a thread on the ABNA page about several authors who were picked up from last year's breakthrough novel award to publish through the Encore program. A few of the authors have weighed in on the thread and seem very happy so far-then again, it's a new program, so it'll be interesting to see if it passes the test of time.

Konrath has something most self-published authors on Amazon, Lulu, Author Solutions, and so on don't have: A known name. He's done very well with his backlist on Amazon, and he had the support of his agent to do this.

But otherwise, simply being on Amazon, as we've seen, is not an indicator of success. Like other self-publishing ventures it may be good for some people. Your mileage may vary.

jennontheisland said:

Me, I'm not seeing anything different. It's self publishing along the lines of Lulu. No vetting process that I can find, I'm not sure how much editing they offer, and your book will be available on AMAZON!

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Does Lulu send out 40 million emails announcing your book? What is that worth to a book?

Right now, with self-published ebooks I'm selling on AMAZON, I'm earning $150 per day. In July, that will be $450 per day. All on Amazon alone.

How much exposure will my self-pubbed books get through this deal?

How many bookstores who have sold my previous six books in this series will order my latest book to sell to fans because Amazon has a sales and marketing department pushing it?

What is it worth to have Amazon as a partner, promoting an original title that they have published?

And you really don't see the difference?

JA Konrath said:

Does Lulu send out 40 million emails announcing your book? What is that worth to a book?

Right now, with self-published ebooks I'm selling on AMAZON, I'm earning $150 per day. In July, that will be $450 per day. All on Amazon alone.

How much exposure will my self-pubbed books get through this deal?

How many bookstores who have sold my previous six books in this series will order my latest book to sell to fans because Amazon has a sales and marketing department pushing it?

What is it worth to have Amazon as a partner, promoting an original title that they have published?

And you really don't see the difference?

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I suspect authors who aren't already NY published and who don't already have an established reader base may not see the same results.

And I don't believe that spam emails are effective marketing.

jennontheisland said:

And I don't believe that spam emails are effective marketing.

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Amazon's "spam" emails work for me, as I suspect they do for tons of book lovers. I get them all the time, read them, and have purchased from them.

JA Konrath said:

How many bookstores who have sold my previous six books in this series will order my latest book to sell to fans because Amazon has a sales and marketing department pushing it?

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Well, one bookstore owner said on the blog itself that she can't/won't be able to order it because it's coming from Amazon.

I'm somewhat doubtful that I'll be able to go into my local B&N and see it on the shelves, considering they're a direct competitor with Amazon. And sure, I can order it - like any other small publisher listed here and elsewhere. But on the shelves? I don't know.

Still, it's a case of switching one publisher for another and I'm glad it worked out for your series. Only time will tell if the Amazon print machine does what it claims to be able to do.

Looks like Barnes & Noble wants a piece of this action too.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...gn=4ef9e5ba8e-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email)

I'm not sure I see this as a shift in the publishing industry so much as an attempt on the part of overburdened retailers to find new income streams.

jennontheisland said:

I suspect authors who aren't already NY published and who don't already have an established reader base may not see the same results.

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This, exactly. That seems to be the one thing people forget when an established author uses a self-pub route and has really high success. An unknown author either has to have a REALLY great story or a heck of a lot of marketing money in order to get the same results. Like others said, only time will tell if this proves to be just another self-pub route or not.

So this is different from createspace?

Guys, just want to point out that from what I understand this is a legit, albeit experimental form of publication, similar to the new writing thing that MacMillan has going on. While a lot of people were skeptical of that too, initially, it has proved, for a number of writers, to be a good way of breaking in.

Going with Amazon Encore is NOT self-publishing, and both formerly self-published books and non-self published books are eligible for consideration.

Time, I'm sure, will reveal more.

Amazon Publishing / Montlake Romance

Amazon to Publish New Line of Romances

BY JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
(Wall Street Journal MAY 5, 2011)

Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its fast-growing publishing business with a new line of romance books, its latest quest for original content to distinguish its print and digital bookselling services.
The imprint, Montlake Romance, will publish digital, physical and audio books and launch with an original new work, Connie Brockway's "The Other Guy's Bride," this fall.
In an interview, Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, said the online retailer will eventually publish books in other genres, including thrillers, mysteries and science fiction.
"Our customers are voracious readers of genre fiction, and romance is one of the biggest and fastest growing ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000677371 Another link.

I saw this, and that Connie's book is the launch book. I also read this was a backlist title for her, but can't find out much else.

Amazon the Publisher (merged into BR&BC thread)

This is good news for writers, I assume:

According to an Amazon source, Laurence Kirshbaum, former CEO of the Time-Warner Book Group and more recently a literary agent, “has accepted the role of Publisher for Amazon’s New York publishing office, effective July 5th.”

(Story here.)

The fact that people are getting into the publishing business, and not just e-books, seems like a great thing for us, no?

Another publisher would seem to be a good thing for writers. But are bookstores interested in stocking Amazon product -- since Amazon has been such a strong competitor for them?

I can't see why B&N and Borders would stock Amazon print books on their shelves.

If I ran a bookstore I wouldn't toss money to the monster out to put me out of business. Amazon may sell print copies off their websites but I bet you'll be hardpressed to find them in any actual bookstores.

There might be a bit of something behind why Amazon lost the Amanda Hocking auction to SMP... at least I'm sure her books will go onto bookshelves. I can't see any of the authors going through Amazon's publishing program having their books anywhere *but* Amazon.

But I could be wrong...

Sheryl Nantus said:

I can't see why B&N and Borders would stock Amazon print books on their shelves.

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So if Stephen King signed on with Amazon, and you ran a bookstore, you wouldn't carry King? If the demand is there they'll stock it. Otherwise their customers will just go somewhere that does. Like directly to amazon.

Vaguely Piratical said:

So if Stephen King signed on with Amazon, and you ran a bookstore, you wouldn't carry King? If the demand is there they'll stock it. Otherwise their customers will just go somewhere that does. Like directly to amazon.

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King and other established bestsellers might be a different story, since they are guaranteed sales no matter where the book is coming from. However, the average midlist author is (as usual) the person who'd be most affected by this and potentially not end up in brick and mortar bookstores. Brand-new authors, too.

Vaguely Piratical said:

So if Stephen King signed on with Amazon, and you ran a bookstore, you wouldn't carry King? If the demand is there they'll stock it. Otherwise their customers will just go somewhere that does. Like directly to amazon.

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King has a good commercial publisher. I somehow doubt I'd see him racing to go to Amazon.

AFAIK Amazon's not taking on the big names at this point. And considering one of the reasons they lost the Amanda Hocking auction was that they wanted Kindle exclusivity I don't think it's a far extrapolation to say that her agent was also concerned about trapping her in a spot where her print books wouldn't be any more accessible through Amazon than they were before.

If I'm running a bookstore I'm not going to stock the competition. Period. Why the hell would I give Amazon my money and my shelf space when they're the direct competition?

I agree. King isn't likely to go to Amazon, but I was just curious on the "what if".

I think it will end up going like this: a lot of bookstores will refuse to stock amazon books. Amazon won't care, they can afford to just sell through their own channels. Eventually an amazon published author will go big (or a big author will jump ship to amazon). People will start going into other bookstores asking if they have that author. With enough demand the stores will start stocking that author. Down the slippery slopes the bookstores go until, lo and behold, they stock amazon published books.

Just seems to me the most likely course of events. Amazon has more than enough money for the publishing imprints to run on low profits for a couple of years. And they have the infrastructure to run on a pretty tidy profit without bookstores.

JA Konrath signed with them for the mystery imprint, as a co-writer. Since he's all about self publishing these days, what does that say? Anything or nothing?

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/47246-amazon-starts-mystery-imprint-thomas--mercer.html

ETA: Here's his take on the Amazon thing:

"Amazon allowed me to get into bookstores--something self-pubbing couldn't do for me without a lot of extra work on my part."

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/