Laurel Saville

One thing that seems true, at least for the moment, is that Amazon has little ability to move physical copies of its own books. Internet companies generally hate things that do not scale, which might eventually temper Amazon’s enthusiasm for acquiring, editing and publicizing books. In the meantime, though, it is publishing about a book a day.

Amazon.com has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers. Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

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