Amazon reveals its romantic side

Venture is latest stage in online retailer’s growing expansion into publishing its own titles Amazon.com has announced plans to move further into publishing with the launch of a new romance imprint, Montlake Romance, “bringing readers the freshest, most innovative and compelling love stories possible”. Montlake, named after a neighbourhood in central Seattle, is the online retailer’s fourth imprint, following its flagship venture Amazon Encore, literature in translation imprint Amazon Crossing and bestselling author Seth Godin’s The Domino Project, “a series of manifestos by thought leaders”. Launching in November with the award-winning writer Connie Brockway’s The Other Guy’s Bride – in which a budding archaeologist in turn-of-the-century Egypt poses as another man’s fiancée – Montlake will publish across the romantic fiction spectrum, from romantic suspense to paranormal romance and fantasy. The “broad range” of new titles will be available to readers in North America in print, Kindle and audio formats from Amazon’s website and from bookshops in the US. “Romance is one of our biggest and fastest-growing categories, particularly among Kindle customers, so we can’t wait to make The Other Guy’s Bride and other compelling titles available to romance fans around the world,” said Amazon Publishing vice president Jeff Belle, announcing the news. Brockway said the new imprint was giving her “the opportunity to write romances that capture the imagination as well as the heart and I’m thrilled to invite readers to join me on this exhilarating journey. There are so many stories I’ve been dying to tell you, and people you simply have to meet.” Amazon.com is also looking into launching imprints focusing on other fiction genres, including mystery, science fiction and thrillers, according to US books magazine Publishers Weekly , and is recruiting staff to increase its publishing presence. “We also know our customers enjoy genre fiction of all kinds, so we are busy building publishing businesses that will focus on additional genres as well,” said Belle. The Bookseller’s news editor Graeme Neill said that Amazon was “definitely becoming more aggressive in its publishing business”, pointing to the news last month that the online retailer “came close to winning a multi-million dollar auction for self-published author Amanda Hocking , the first time it has bid on a frontlist title”, and to its new hiring strategy. “If you go onto Amazon’s website, they are currently hiring acquisition editors, publicists, marketing staff. This is something they weren’t looking at several years ago,” he said. The move into romance is a good one for Amazon, he added, particularly digitally, as “romance and crime readers were the first to really buy into ebooks, so Amazon having its own romance imprint makes a lot of sense as it will only sell its romance ebooks through its own Kindle e-reader”. Publishers, however, will be eyeing the retailer’s increased publishing presence uneasily. “Publishers will be concerned Amazon is increasingly encroaching on what they see as ‘their’ business,” said Neill. Publishing Amazon.com Internet E-commerce Alison Flood guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.