Amazon.com

Amazon Books Ends Discounting for Non-Prime Members
November 30, 2016 at 10:50 am

Amazon quietly began selling books in its brick-and-mortar Seattle store, Amazon Books, at list price early this fall. When the store opened last November, all books were sold at Amazon.com’s prices–often significantly less than the publisher-set list prices. With Amazon’s recent phase-out of list prices site-wide, the discrepancy is likely to continue. And after years…

Pottermore Returns to Growth
November 22, 2016 at 1:54 pm

Pottermore, the digital content company for J K Rowling's Harry Potter books, returned to growth in its last financial year after the firm’s decision to make its ebooks and audiobooks available via Amazon, Apple, Audible and others “really paid off”. In the year to end-March 2016, sales more than doubled to £15.1m, compared to £7m…

What the Amazon Acquisition of Westland Says About the Indian Publishing Industry
November 7, 2016 at 12:38 pm

Excitement of this kind is quite rare in the publishing industry. The last came a few years ago when Random House took over Penguin. And now this Amazon buyout of Westland has given the industry an interesting conversation beginner. Amazon had signaled their intent in February this year when they acquired minority stake in Westland…

In Praise of Ereader Technolust
November 3, 2016 at 11:20 am

Where have the ereader fetishists gone? I mean, they’re out there, usually drooling over the latest model updates (guilty). But where are the resulting think-pieces about the continuously changing nature of reading as we know it? If Barnes & Noble updates its Nook, the resulting press amounts to, “It’s waterproof now, if you care about…

Amazon Charges Non-Prime Members More at Physical Bookstores, Hinting at New Retail Strategy
November 2, 2016 at 10:55 am

Cashiers at Amazon’s physical bookstores now ask each customer the same question: Are you a Prime member? That’s because Amazon recently implemented a new pricing structure at its bookstores that could signal a broader strategy for the company’s brick-and-mortar retail expansion. At the Amazon bookstore in Seattle’s University Village, Prime members who pay $99 for an annual membership…

Amazon Executives Are 'Pleased' With Results of Retail Bookstores So Far
October 26, 2016 at 11:00 am

Amazon’s nascent plan to open physical bookstores is an experiment going well so far, according to Andy Jassy, who heads the company’s cloud unit, Amazon Web Services. “It’s an experiment for us, something we think could be very useful,” said Jassy, while speaking at the Wall Street Journal D Live conference on Tuesday. “So far,…

Amazon’s Newest Ambition: Competing Directly With UPS and FedEx
October 3, 2016 at 2:20 pm

Just before the morning rush hour on a recent Thursday, a brigade of vans rolled up to a low-slung warehouse near Los Angeles International Airport. Workers in bright green vests crammed some 150 Amazon.com packages into each truck before the fleet headed through the urban sprawl to customers’ doorsteps. This logistical dance wasn’t performed by…

Revealed: How One Amazon Kindle Scam Made Millions of Dollars
September 28, 2016 at 2:01 pm

Emma Moore could have been the health and weight loss guru you spent your life looking for. You might be forgiven for not knowing her work -- after all, she has a common name, one that she shares with other similarly successful authors on Amazon. Until this week, she had dozens of health, dieting, cooking,…