David Streitfeld of the New York Times recently wrote an article on Amazon’s forays into publishing. In “Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal”, he writes:

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

In a word, wow.

Bad Timing

Has there ever been a worse time to be one of the following?

• literary agent
• acquisition editor (AE)
• traditional publisher
• independent book store owner
• other type of middle person

Amazon continues to push the envelope in all sorts of areas and the legacy publishing world doesn’t know quite what to do about this new reality. Many lit agents and AEs have for years prided themselves on their supposed expertise and predictive powers. But they cannot possibly compete with Amazon’s trove of customer data—and knowledge of why customers buy what they do.

No longer are the traditional gatekeepers in control of the publishing process.

There’s just no reason today to go with a legacy publisher and more and more “proper” authors have figured this out. No longer are the traditional gatekeepers in control of the publishing process. Is Amazon as a bully? Perhaps—and many of the powers that be probably think so.

Another way to look at it: Amazon is a liberator.