Amazon

IndieCommerce, the e-commerce arm of the American Booksellers Association, unveiled a new policy aimed at books published by Amazon: “only publishers’ titles that are made available to retailers for sale in all available formats will be included in the IndieCommerce inventory database.”

According to Publishers Weekly, IndieCommerce began removing Amazon titles from its database earlier this week, joining Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Indigo Books’ decision to keep Amazon published titles out of their physical bookstores. These booksellers feel that Amazon’s push for exclusivity in eBooks is hurting the book publishing industry.

Publishers Weekly has more: “In an e-mail message that went out Monday to indie bookstores that rely on the IndieCommerce Web platform, director Matt Supko wrote, ‘While Amazon is seeking to distribute its print catalog through conventional means, it seems that they are simultaneously pursing a strategy of locking in ebook exclusives which other retailers are not allowed to sell. IndieCommerce believes that this is wrong.’”

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Amazon Studios has awarded $1 million to Rob Gardner for his test movie, 12 Princesses–”family friendly musical tale about a love-struck farm boy in a magical world.” Follow this link to watch the 12 Princesses test film.

In addition, Matthew Gossett won Amazon’s $100,000 best script award for Origin of a Species, “a thriller about an ex-cop facing the greatest obstacle of his life.” Follow this link to read the script for Origin of a Species. Every year the  studio collects scripts and test movies from aspiring filmmakers, rewarding the best work with annual prizes.

Here’s more about the program, from the release: “Amazon Studios first launched in November of 2010, since then the Amazon Studios community has submitted more than 700 test movies and 7,000 scripts. In the last year, 39 scripts, test movies and trailers were highlighted in contests and awarded more than $1.9 million in cash prizes. Additionally, Amazon Studios recently attached prominent producers to three projects discovered through the community to help further their development process.”

Read more

Last week, reports surfaced that Amazon is considering opening a bricks-and-mortar store. Today, Reuters is reporting that this store may be in Seattle, the city where the company is headquartered.

Reuters has more: “Amazon also plans to open a physical store in its home town of Seattle in coming months to showcase and sell its growing line of gadgets, including the Kindle Fire tablet, industry blog Good E-Reader reported this weekend.”

Analysts have imagined the stores as Apple-like boutiques and Costco-like big box stores. eBookNewser has more: “Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland speculated about it in a report to investors.He wrote: ‘The primary goal of the test is to determine if a physical retail presence can accelerate sales of Kindle devices and follow-on consumption of digital content at an attractive return on invested capital.’”

Amazon is embracing book publishing more and more these days, but they’ll have to be the ones to sell their books.

Books-a-Million and Indigo Books have joined Barnes & Noble in deciding not to stock books published by Amazon in their brick and mortar bookstores.

Indigo vice-president Janet Eger told The Globe and Mail: “In our view Amazon’s actions are not in the long-term interests of the reading public or the publishing and book retailing industry, globally. Indigo Founder and CEO Heather Reisman has congratulated Barnes & Noble for taking a leadership stance on the matter, and offers kudos.” Read more

Do you think Amazon would fit in beside the Walmart and Target in your local mall?

Jason Calacanis reported rumors this week that the online giant may launch brick-and-mortar stores. Even the New York Times speculated about the resurfacing rumors:

The idea seems farfetched, but before 2001 so was the idea of Apple operating its own stores. “I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake,” a consultant told BusinessWeek about Apple’s plans in what has become one of the most celebrated bad guesses of the era.

Read more

If you like clicking on “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” links to find new books, you will love this homemade Amazon books visualization and recommendation site.

Follow this link to see the search results for Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. Created by Andrei Kashcha, the site uses Amazon data to create a flowchart with book cover links to scores of new books you might like. While the interface feels a little busy at first, it is easy to click and explore the book covers.

Here’s more from the site: “Yasiv is a visual recommendation service that helps people to choose the right product from Amazon’s catalog … it shows what people are buying with other products. A link between two products means that they are often bought together. By simply observing the network of products one may guess what has more popularity and what has less.” (Via Reddit)

Amazon reported that net sales had increased 35 percent to $17.43 billion in the fourth quarter. However, net income decreased 58 percent compared to the same period last year as the company spent on introducing the Kindle Fire.

According to Forbes, Amazon still managed to beat Wall Street’s expectations for the quarter. They wrote earlier today: “Wall Street is currently expecting a fourth-quarter profit of 19 cents per share from Amazon, a figure that is down sharply from earnings of 91 cents per share in the same quarter last year.”

Here’s more from the earnings release: “Net income decreased 58% to $177 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.38 per diluted share, compared with net income of $416 million, or $0.91 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2010.”

Read more

Barnes & Noble has decided not to stock books published by Amazon in their physical stores, keeping the new publisher out of the country’s largest network of brick and mortar bookstores.

Bloomberg Businessweek senior reporter Brad Stone called it “a declaration of war,” breaking the news with a statement from B&N’s chief merchandising officer, Jaime Carey. The bookseller will offer Amazon titles in their online store. Last week, Amazon revealed that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will distribute print books from Amazon Publishing.

Check it out: “Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain eBooks to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content. It’s clear to us that Amazon has proven they would not be a good publishing partner to Barnes & Noble as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.” (Via Sarah Weinman)

Bloomberg Businessweek unveiled a cover story about Larry Kirshbaum today, studying the former literary agent and publisher at Amazon Publishing. The front cover will feature flaming imagery and the headline: “Amazon Wants to Burn the Book Business.”

The article called Kirshbaum “Amazon’s hit man,” running anonymous quotes from spooked traditional publishing executives. These provocative elements aside, the article offered some insight into Amazon’s influence in the world of literary agents.

Here’s an excerpt: “As [Kirshbaum] began to work on Amazon’s behalf last summer, agents, at least, were excited, because getting deep-pocketed Amazon into the game of bidding for books could translate into larger advances. ‘I want to do business with Larry wherever he is,’ says agent Scott Waxman, who sold Amazon the Bob Knight book. ‘Do I think this is something that would make the Big Six publishers uncomfortable? Yes, with a big capital Y.’”

Amazon has struck a new deal to distribute its books outside of its popular online store. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s brand new New Harvest imprint will now publish “all of Amazon Publishing’s New York-based imprint’s adult titles in print and distribute them in North America outside of the Amazon.com platform.”

When Amazon Publishing’s East Coast Group launches its inaugural list next fall, it will include books by Tim Ferriss, Penny Marshall, Deepak Chopra and James Franco. Last year Houghton Mifflin Harcourt mounted a major restructuring.

Amazon Publishing’s East Coast Group publisher Larry Kirshbaum had this statement: “Our goal has been, and remains, to introduce authors to as many readers as possible … This new agreement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt enables us to broaden our distribution and get our books into more readers’ hands.”