If you’re wondering who is the insurgent publisher, then maybe you should ask Alexa.
Interview with Mark Gottlieb, Literary Agent at Trident Media Group
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Announced in October 2012 and completed the following July, the merger of Penguin and Random House reduced the Big Six by one. In the years since, trade book publishing has counted its leading houses on a single hand. But that calculation may be quietly changing.
If you’re wondering who is the insurgent publisher, then maybe you should ask Alexa. The Amazon smart speaker and virtual assistant is one element of a multi-faceted effort looking to make Amazon a leading force in publishing trade books for adults and children.
Over the last two decades, of course, Amazon became the dominant player in book sales. Amazon Publishing, launched in 2009, is also on the rise, says literary agent Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group. As its differentiator, he explains, Amazon Publishing has developed strategic marketing programs and sophisticated online author services. Want to know your book’s current monthly sales numbers? Just ask Alexa that, too.
“What Amazon is able to do, not just as a publisher but also a retailer, is very similar to what publishers used to do,” Gottlieb tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. In the past, he explains, publishers Scribner and Scholastic operated bookstores from their offices in Manhattan.
“Amazon really owns their online storefront in that [same] way, and they can place a lot of their own titles there,” says Gottlieb. “Just look at the Amazon top 100 and see how many titles there are from Amazon imprints.”
