Amazon Comes Up Shorts

by Jim Milliot, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 8/19/2005

Amazon.com is officially a publisher. The company finally unwrapped a program that showcases, and sells short magazine-like work from established authors.

The program, called Amazon shorts and first revealed by PW Daily in early April, allows customers to buy the new work for 49 cents in digital form from a store at Amazon.com/shorts and elsewhere on the site, and then get the work in a number of digital forms (as well as print it out).

Amazon has been working on the program for more than a year, and its representatives were making the rounds to agents over the winter to sign up authors. Judging by who they've landed, there is quite a bit of interest. The alphabetic listing starts with Kevin Anderson and ends with Stuart Woods. In between? Ann Beattie, Terry Brooks, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Rhodes, Danielle Steel and Gloria Vanderbilt. The house was said to aim for 250 authors when it approached agents; it's not known if it will add more.

Not all publishers were thrilled with the idea when it first became public in the spring. "Their approach of going to agents is a bit of an end-around," said one prominent editor. "And if they win where do they end up? We're still in business together. You never want to do something that's so big that it offends everyone else." But most agents endorsed it, calling it clever and a good sales tool, and said it wouldn’t cannibalize, and in fact could increase, traditional sales.