Amazon.com

Amazon Has Started Making Ads From Kindle Ebooks
April 28, 2015

Amazon recently partnered with Land Rover, for example, to help distribute an ebook adventure story written for the brand by an established author, on the Kindle platform.

Dallaire said: "We saw very high engagement from customers in terms of reading it. It was not promoted as a pure advertisement, but rather content, and the author that created that content is what brought customers in to engage with it to begin with. It was a great learning for us.

Kindle Unlimited Payout Ties Record Low $1.33 in March 2015
April 17, 2015

Kindle Unlimited adoption continued to grow last month, but unfortunately it grew faster than Amazon 's willingness to fund it. Earlier this week Amazon released the latest statistics on KDP Select, the program used to fund indie author and publisher participation in Kindle Unlimited. Amazon reported that the pool for KDP Select for March 2015 had been increased to $9.5 million. They also announced separately that the payout for each time an ebook was read had dropped to $1.33.

Kindle Voyage Set to Be Launched in India
March 25, 2015

Amazon today announced the availability of Kindle Voyage, the 7th generation of Kindle, in India. Kindle Voyage is the thinnest, most advanced Kindle ever and features a higher resolution, higher contrast display with a new adaptive front light and reimagined page turns.

"The stylishly designed Kindle Voyage was crafted to give readers the best possible reading experience," said Rajiv Mehta, Country Manager, Kindle India. "They can download books form the selection of 3 million ebooks in the India Kindle Store, read for hours without eyestrain or glare, and even read in bright sunlight."

Can Barnes & Noble's Redesigned Shopping Bags Revive Its Bookstores?
March 24, 2015

The Barnes & Noble shopping bag spent years promoting a product-the Nook e-reader, an also-ran rival to the Amazon Kindle-that was intended virtually to eliminate the need for bookstore shopping bags. It didn't work. Now B&N has decided to use its shopping bags to emphasize something Amazon.com doesn't offer: bookstores that offer handsome plastic bags.  

"You don't get a shopping bag when you shop online-you get a box," says Glenn Kaplan, Barnes & Noble's creative director. The company distributes more than 90 million bags a year, making the totes one of its most effective advertising campaigns.

Mike Shatzkin: Is Amazon Friend or Foe?
March 16, 2015

Although just about every publisher has headaches dealing with Amazon, very few could deny that Amazon is their most profitable account, if they take sales volume, returns, and the cost of servicing into consideration. This fact is almost never acknowledged and therefore qualifies as one of the industry's dirty little secrets. Because they've consolidated the book-buying audience online and deliver to it with extraordinary efficiency, Amazon must feel totally justified in clawing back margin; it wasn't their idea to be every publisher's most profitable account! 

Audible Calls for Straight-to-Audio Books
March 13, 2015

While ebooks have been the primary object of media attention in recent years, as far as publishing formats go, audiobooks have remained a steady performer for many publishers. Now, Lynn Nearyreports for NPR's "All Things Considered," their popularity is soaring, and producers such as Audible are looking for new ways to capitalize on that.

Audiobooks have enjoyed a boost partly due to the advent of smartphones and other devices that make it much more convenient to listen. Neary speaks with editor/founder of Audiofilemagazine Robin Whitten, who explains, "You suddenly have a complete recorded file from the first words of a book to the end."

Amazon Kindle Voyage eBook Reader To Be Launched In India Soon
March 13, 2015

Though the device was introduced in September last year alongside the 7th Generation Kindle, the Kindle Voyage is finally being launched soon in India.

Also known as the thinnest Kindle till date, the two variants of the Voyage is priced at Rs.16,499 for the WiFi only version and Rs.20,449 for the WiFi + 3G version.

The device comes with a 300 pixels-per-inch display sporting the highest resolution, contrast and brightness seen on any of Amazon's e-readers so far.

Alibaba and Amazon Enter Unusual Partnership
March 9, 2015

We knew it was coming.  We didn't know where, when, how, or why, but we knew Alibaba, the largest and most profitable e-commerce company in the world, and Amazon, the second largest, would inevitably come into direct contact with each other. And so it has come to pass.  Amazon, a company waging a losing battle to compete head to head with Alibaba in China, has seemingly declared "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Today the Seattle based "Everything Store"  announced that it opened a consumer product presence on Alibaba's flagship business-to-consumer e-commerce platform, T-Mall. 

You Can Design a Better Store than Amazon
February 26, 2015

Amazon isn't your competition because they sell your product. They are your competition because they already own your customer.

Amazon is your competition for one reason only: attention. Amazon already has your customer in their store. Your customer is already browsing their aisles. Amazon will beat you, not because they have a better store than you, but because they have a bigger store than you. They sell enough things to already have your customer's attention. It doesn't matter if they came in to buy socks, if they're at all likely to buy your thing

Amazon Publishing Expands Into France, Spain
February 25, 2015

Amazon's modest publishing empire has outposts in the US, UK, and Germany - and soon France and Spain. Actualitte reported on Tuesday that Amazon is now turning down applications for a manuscripts editor position with Amazon Publishing France. They don't have the name of the person who got the job, but they do have one of the rejection letters.

The letter was signed by Stoffel van den Berge, the senior recruiter for Amazon Europe, and it says that the position has been filled. The LinkedIn listing for that job is no longer accepting applications, so that is very likely true.