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Amazon.com is showing every sign that its ambition no longer just to distribute books but also to publish them is very real and growing.

The company announced in the past two weeks a publishing list for the spring and early summer that includes 16 books in its AmazonEncore imprint and eight books in its AmazonCrossing imprint, which focuses on book publishing and translations.

Mining data to guide acquisitions

Both imprints use Amazon’s extensive sales data and customer reviews to help inform publishing decisions. For example, Amazon culled data from its French site to help guide its first foreign acquisition, which became available in November (Tierno Monenembo’s The King of Kahel, which won France’s Prix Renaudot in 2008).

“Our team of editors uses this data as a starting point to identify strong candidates, then applies their judgment to narrow the list and reach out to the authors,” Jeff Belle, VP, Amazon.com Books, told LJ. “We’re fortunate to have access to both a lot of sales information, as well as an editorial team made up of book lovers….” he said.

Emily Williams, a digital content producer at Book Publishers Marketplace and cochair of the Book Industry Study Group rights committee, told LJ that Amazon’s efforts were a new means of finding writers who were not “part of the traditional publishing food chain” and also filling in “some of New York publishing’s traditional blind spots.”

“Amazon has a lot of information from its millions of users that book publishers have never had access to in making acquisitions decisions. It was inevitable that someone would try to leverage this kind of platform to try to pick undiscovered best sellers,” she said.

“It will be interesting to see how their books do, but…I don’t believe that the track record so far has shown that the data-driven approach offers any more sure bets than the old model of experienced editors making informed decisions,” she said.

Amazon discovers writers through several channels, Belle said, including Kindle Direct Christian Book Publishing (where writers can upload unpublished manuscripts), the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and CreateSpace.

“We then work with the authors to introduce or reintroduce their books to readers through marketing and book distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Book Store, Amazon Kindle Store, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers,” Belle said.

.AmazonEncore began publishing in May 2009, and as of January 31 it was offering 54 titles on its site. AmazonCrossing was announced a year later, and the site now features 12 titles in all. For AmazonCrossing, Amazon acquires the rights and pays for their translation. Belle would not disclose financial details.

“We’re just looking for books our customers love,” he said.

Waiting for a breakout best seller

Michael Norris, a senior analyst at Simba Information, which tracks the book publishing companies and media industries, told LJ that the Amazon move mimics what traditional trade publishers have long been doing by mining data and giving book contracts to self-published authors. Amazon is simply trying to develop its own publishing ecosystem in order to bring more people to shop at its site, he said.

“[It's] a mechanism&hel

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott. AmazonEncore Editions, 2010. Reviewed from CreateSpace edition, won in September in the Color Me Brown Challenge.

The Plot: Genna Colon, fifteen, lives in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with her overworked mother and three siblings. It's not an easy life: roaches in the apartment, her brother Rico hanging out with drug dealers, sister Toshi doing who knows what, but Genna keeps trying. She gets straight As in school, dreams of college, and finds love with Jamaican born Judah. One night, after a fight with her mother, Genna runs to the local gardens and makes a wish at the fountain.

Suddenly, she is back in time. Still in Brooklyn, but as for the time? It's the Civil War. She's dazed, confused, and hurt. The first people who find her don't help; instead, they are two white men who assume she's a runaway slave.

The Good: What a page turner! Genna is so engaging, and she is faced with so many challenges as she struggles to survive in the past. Having twenty first century sensibilities in the face of nineteenth century racism? "Hard" doesn't even begin to describe it, as she tries to build a life and friendships in her new time. I don't want to give too many of the plot points away, because seeing the obstacles Genna encounters and how she climbs over, goes around, or moves it is part of the reason this is a page turner.

Time travel to the past is a great device to use in looking at the past because it allows the reader to learn about history, yet there is no fear of anachronistic viewpoints because a modern day person is interpreting, reacting to, and weighing in on the past. So, here, the reader learns about life in Civil War era Brooklyn and sees the points of view and attitudes of a variety of characters, but there is always Genna's modern sensibilities weighing, judging, understanding.

The Brooklyn of the past comes alive; both in terms of setting (houses, landmarks, waterfront) but also in terms of how people think and act and believe. Part of me wants to go on a A Wish After Midnight tour of Brooklyn; then I remind myself, I don't drive in the city. Genna ends up working as a servant for an Abolitionist family. Happy ending? No; she finds out quickly that just because a person believes in freedom and the end of slavery, doesn't mean that person believes in equality or respect.

Elliott is working on a sequel; part of it is posted at her website. Also at her website? Links to additional information on the history found in the book, perfect for readers like me. An interesting point -- Genna's story is not set in the present (i.e., now), but rather in 2001, and it's clear that September 11 is going to be a factor in the sequel.



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