Amazon Launching a Romance Imprint

[Nathan Bransford]

(NASDAQ: AMZN)--Amazon.com today announced the launch of Montlake Romance, the fourth and latest imprint from Amazon Publishing. Connie Brockway, two-time winner of the Romance Writers Association's "RITA Award" for best historical romance, and bestselling author of seventeen novels, including "My Dearest Enemy" and "The Bridal Season," will be the debut author of Montlake Romance. Brockway's new romance, "The Other Guy's Bride," will be published in Fall 2011 and will be available to North American readers in Kindle, print and audio formats at www.amazon.com, as well as at national and independent booksellers.

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What do you think?

[Doug Pardee]

My immediate reaction is, "I'm glad I'm not a romance reader." That reaction is based on my assumption that the e-books from Montlake will be available for Kindle only. The press release indicates that Montlake's print editions will be available outside of Amazon, but the e-book format is referred to as the "Kindle" edition.

My e-reader isn't a Kindle, and I have no intention of buying a Kindle. Every time Amazon sews up an exclusive e-book arrangement with an author or publisher, my attitude toward AMZN hardens a bit more. So far, their exclusive deals haven't struck any titles I'm interested in, and this one missed, too. But I hate bullies, even when they haven't (yet) bullied me personally.

[HillaryJ]

This is interesting to me for a few reasons.

1. The news on the publishing and bookselling front is that sales are down, worldwide. The e-book surge is not, from what I've read, off-setting the reduction in printed book sales. So what does Amazon see that others do not? Is this a large, involved mechanism for increasing kindle sales, or do they see something else in publishing's future that others don't?
2. Do they expect other booksellers to put Amazon (a direct retail competitor) titles on their shelves? Really? I sense a disturbance in the force, as if millions of booksellers just cried out, or laughed maniacally.
3. What's the attraction? What does Amazon offer publishers, editors, marketers or authors that other publishers do not? Yes, they obviously have a better idea of the electronic market, as well as the customer buying data, but is a small start-up wing of a retail business going to have the same atmosphere as a business dedicated books? Maybe that's the point, that there won't be a heritage anchor slowing the evolution of the book market.

It'll be interesting to hear why authors choose to go Amazon.

[Mira]

My take on this? Amazon is brilliant. There are no genres that sell like romance, and with e-publishing, Amazon can pick and choose.

I always suspected Amazon was going to gradually move into a publisher role. It has a HUGE stable of writers, and has a massive amount of data it can use to look at particular writers, reader reactions and trends. It also advertises for free on its own site.

Brilliant.