Amazon pursues authors, cuts out the publisher middleman

If you needed any more evidence that Amazon is building its own digital media empire, here it is. The New York Times reports that the online retail giant will publish over 120 books this quarter alone, both on its Kindle e-book platform and traditional physical copies. That puts it in the odd position of competing with some of its biggest suppliers, the traditional publishing houses that have been around for decades.
These aren’t self-publishing hobbyists or first-time authors, either – Timothy Ferriss, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek is among them. A memoir by Penny Marshall is rumored to have cost $800,000 in rights alone, a sum that Amazon paid happily. Reports from the industr... »read more

More at: SlashGear Add additional source