Joel Warady

Star Author and Amazon Deal Directly

December 15, 2009

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Book publishers have worried with the advent of electronic publishing and the rise of high-volume outlets that popular authors might cut them out and sign deals directly with the likes of Amazon.com. What does Amazon.com's deal with Stephen Covey mean for the future of book retailing?      [more...]

The fact that Covey has made a deal to offer his books directly through e-readers is only part of the story, in my opinion. The real story comes from the fact that this is an indication of the power of Amazon. Amazon has been building their customer database, and their customer profile information, to the point that they know what their customers read, when they read it, and the type of books they might be willing to purchase in the future.

Amazon will be able to take Steven Covey's new books, offer them for distribution to people who have read other Covey books in the past, as well as consumers who have read similar books in the past, and target directly to these consumers. In this case, Amazon is acting as the publisher. They are "printing," distributing, and marketing the book to the potential reader.

So the story is not that authors can bypass publishers. I believe the story is that Amazon is becoming the publisher / distributor / hardware producer / platform owner. Sure sounds a lot like Microsoft's model, doesn't it?