Amazon Tries to Woo Top Authors Away from Traditional Publishers
Amazon is aggressively trying to woo some top authors away from their publishing houses, chipping away at services that publishers and agents currently provide, according to an article in The New York Times.
Amazon plans to publish 122 books this fall, according to the article by David Streitfeld, putting the online retailer in direct competition with the New York publishers that are also its biggest suppliers.
Amazon is apparently willing to pay big advances to secure certain titles. It recently announced it will publish a memoir by actress and director Penny Marshall. Amazon reportedly paid $800,000 for the deal.
Richard Curtis, a veteran agent who is also an e-book publisher, tells The New York Times:
“Everyone’s afraid of Amazon. If you’re a bookstore, Amazon has been in competition with you for some time. If you’re a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you’re an agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.”
Read the full article here.
