Amazon is set to release its upcoming Kindle Fire, which is aimed directly at both the tablet and e-reader market. Authors are also getting excited, as Amazon is ramping up its efforts to publish books directly without publisher intervention.
Amazon has announced that it will be publishing 122 titles this fall as part of its efforts to accelerate its publishing program. Spanning several genres, the project will involve both producing e-book formats and likewise printing the books in physical format (hard-bound and paperback). Sources cited by the New York Times say that the retail giant is aggressively wooing authors to join the program. In effect, though, the company is alienating big-name publishers that have been the bread and butter of their book retail business.
Amazon is banking on the success of their tablets and ebook readers. The company believes that this is only the natural evolution of the book publishing business. “The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,” says Russel Grandinetti, an executive at the company. With the direct publishing effort, the company is taking the publishers, literary agents, and book critics out of the equation.
Authors still have mixed feelings about the new effort, though. Some authors have earned the ire of publishing houses that they are signed with — to the extent of receiving lawsuits — for self-publishing e-books on Amazon. However, Amazon’s direct publishing deals are a boon to many others, whose have often been passed over by editors for lack of a potential market. Some say that the great thing with Amazon’s new publishing program is that even grassroots authors and even small-time publishers can now get their shot at success. Now anyone with a good story can have a bestseller even without the support of the traditional publishing industry.