The only mention of the book business in Amazon’s 2020 year-end results was tied to self-publishing.
Catching up with PW's Andrew Albanese
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While announcing earlier this week another round of record financial results, Amazon revealed that CEO Jeff Bezos will turn over his CEO duties to Andy Jassy, currently head of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
In 1994, Bezos opened Amazon in Seattle as an online bookstore. In 2020, the e-commerce giant saw total sales for the year rise 38% over 2019, to $386.1 billion. Net income increased 84%, to $21.3 billion.
“Bookselling was how Amazon got its start, but it is now just a tiny part of what Amazon does,” says Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.
“The only mention of the book business in Amazon’s 2020 year-end results was tied to its self-publishing business,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.
“Amazon reported that more than 1,000 authors using Kindle Direct Publishing had earned royalties surpassing $100,000 in 2020. In addition, all authors using KDP earned more than $370 million in royalties from their participation in Kindle Unlimited in 2020.”
When Bezos leaves the CEO role sometime in this year’s third quarter, he will become executive chairman of Amazon.
Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.
