Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) frightens book publishers. Not because electronic books
are going to replace print by September. Far from it . Print is thriving, and
while e-book sales have grown 1,300% in the past three years, they still
represent only a fraction of overall revenue in the publishing industry. Amazons
business makes publishers nervous because its finally allowing the online
retailer to cut publishers out of the loop entirely. Amazon is making more of
its own books, and its got the authors to sell them. A Tuesday report in The New
York Times said Amazon has made its latest promising acquisition in an
ever-growing stable of authors producing original books for the company. Timothy
Ferriss, the self-help author behind the bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape
9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich , will release his new book The 4-Hour
Chef exclusively through Amazon Publishing imprint. 4-Hour Workweek has spent 84
weeks on the Times Advice bestseller list. That book was published by Crown, an
imprint under the Bertelsmann-owned Random House. Ferris never entertained a
counteroffer from his previous publisher after talking with Amazon because they
would not have been able to match what Amazon was offering as a technology
company embracing new technology. This is just the latest major publishing
effort from Amazon since editor Laurence Kirshbaum came on as head of Amazon
Publishing in May. Imprint Montlake Romance, an all-romance branch of Amazon
Publishing, opened for business in May. Connie Brockways The Other Guys Bride
will be the imprints first book out this fall. Brockways previous books were
distributed under the Dell Publishing mass-market imprint, another house under
the Random House banner. Then theres Amazon Crossing, an imprint translating
popular novels from abroad into English, the first two of which will be Oliver
Potzschs German-language The Hangmans Daughter and Tierno Monenembos
French-language The King of Kahel . The Amazon Encore imprint will publish books
that previously were released independently or in small quantities, the
potential bestsellers that older publishing houses never had a shot at. Thats an
impressive arsenal, well suited for capturing the average reader and even more
dangerous because Amazons Kindle is such a high-profile presence in the e-book
business. Amazon controls the format, the distribution and now the publishing
rights for a rapidly growing business. As chief executive of News Corp. s
(NASDAQ: NWS ) Harper Collins UK publisher Victoria Barnsley said, Amazon
Publishing is obviously a concern since it means the retailer is getting close
to being in a monopolistic situation. Even as Amazons power grows, its
competitors are coming under fire. A class action lawsuit against Harper
Collins, Random House, CBS (NYSE: CBS ) Simon & Schuster, Pearson s (NYSE: PSO
) Penguin Group, Macmillan Publishing, Hachette and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) was
filed in California claiming that the those companies used the agency model for
pricing e-books in Apples iBookstore to conspire to force e-book rival Amazon to
abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing. It would appear that everythings
coming up Amazon. Investors already pleased with how Amazon has performed for
them will only have more to celebrate as Amazons publishing, Kindle and
traditional retail business continue to work in concert. As to whether Amazon
will attract attention for monopolizing an industry, time will tell. As of this
writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named
here. Follow him on Twitter at
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