The third biggest publisher on Kindle by paid units in the US is Amazon Publishing

[Top100EbooksRank]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ing-plans.html

At present Amazon has 15 publishing imprints and, according to Belle, it ranks #3 on Kindle in the U.S. for paid units, and #1 on copies sold per new release.

It is growing too judging by how it plan to hire 70 more staff members:

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/am...tles-year.html

Amazon Publishing plans to release more than 500 titles in the UK this year, the company's vice president Jeff Belle has said, in a memo to agents.
The 500 books mentioned in Belle’s memo are to include titles acquired by the UK business, “combined with US-acquired books which will be simultaneously published in the UK”.

The memo, which has been released to The Bookseller, also outlines the company’s plans to hire 70 more staff members in London, Munich, Seattle, New York and Luxembourg, with the jobs “spanning editorial, marketing, operations, and business development”.

Amazon Publishing's goal in Germany, where it recently launched a German-language publishing programme, was to publish more than 200 German-language books in 2014.

Hugh Howey's Authorearnings back up this factoid:

http://authorearnings.com/reports/the-50k-report/

Not a lot of titles (3%)


But pretty good market share (9%)

[Top100EbooksRank]

Amazon Publishing has two "million copies" selling authors: Oliver Pötzsch & Helen Bryan

Helen Bryan, author of historical novels War Brides (2012) and The Sisterhood (2013), has become the second Amazon Publishing author to sell one million copies in combined print, audio, and Kindle editions worldwide. In July 2013, Amazon Publishing author Oliver Pötzsch crossed the one million copy threshold with his critically acclaimed Hangman’s Daughter series.

Since Barnes and Noble, indie bookstores etc..refuse to carry Amazon Publishing books, most of the sales are probably digital.



Interesting considering this super agent advises authors to pick the plague over Amazon.

http://www.mhpbooks.com/andrew-wylie...e-over-amazon/

Here are rough translations of a dozen lines from the interview:

1) Amazon’s publishing arm is a “publishing program that stands out for its idiocy.”

2) Moreover: “Nothing that Amazon publishes is worth reading.”

3) If what Amazon is doing in Germany is anything like what’s happening in the U.S., Amazon will “operate the most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine. No even moderately well-known author will get involved with Amazon Publishing, because bookstores will not carry these books. Amazon is not interested in print, only digital. This publishing concept is a dead end.”

6) Asked if he would advise young writers to apply for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, he said, “No, I would advise him to get on a soapbox in Manhattan or Munich and read from his novel. He would achieve a better audience there than with Amazon.”

12) In sum: “My advice is: if you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!”

Amazon Publishing is rumored to pay authors 50% of net royalties compare to the Big Publisher 25% of net royalties.

50% net royalties on a book sold at $9.99 is $3.5 (50% of 70% of $9.99)
25% net royalties on a book sold at $9.99 is $1.75 (25% of 70% of $9.99)

Self-Publisher gets 100% of net or $7 (100% of 70% of $9.99)


The disadvantage of signing with Amazon: no sales at B&N and indie bookstores.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

The disadvantage of signing with Amazon: no sales at B&N and indie bookstores.

NOT. QUITE. TRUE.
They don't stock them on spec, like other publishers' books, but they *will* special order them for you. At full list. If you don't mind waiting a couple weeks...

[mr ploppy]

Amazon advertises its own titles a lot more than anyone else's.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Amazon advertises its own titles a lot more than anyone else's.

Hardly unusual or particularly new.

Sears promotes CRAFTMAN tools and KENMORE appliances.
WALMART promotes GREAT VALUE groceries.
BEST BUY promotes INSIGNIA, DYNEX, etc.

Retailers always promote their house brands; it's how the game is played.

B&M bookstores, on the other hand, promote what they're paid to move.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

Amazon Publishing has two "million copies" selling authors: Oliver Pötzsch & Helen Bryan

Given how many authors that Amazon itself actually publishes, those are impressive percentages. Not to mention those who don't hit the Million-dollar club, but manage to eat well.

Since Barnes and Noble, indie bookstores etc..refuse to carry Amazon Publishing books, most of the sales are probably digital.

That's more urban myth than reality. The reality is, most self-pubbed books wouldn't get picked up by indie bookstores even if they were trade-pubbed. So...{shrug}, it's a trade-off. Look at all of the blather from Wylie about AL Kennedy's book, and how BIP claims it only sold 800-ish copies in bookstores. Yes, but online? That's sheer confirmation bias. And we all know that, trade- or indie-pubbed, online is now king in terms of booksales, print, digital, whatever.

Interesting considering this super agent advises authors to pick the plague over Amazon.

http://www.mhpbooks.com/andrew-wylie...e-over-amazon/

OMG! The JACKAL is upset! Stop the presses, because the guy who has made nearly his entire literary career poaching other agents' clients is upset because Amazon is poaching HIS clientele? Seriously? And has anyone else noticed that his clientele increasingly shows "estate of..." over (publishing new now) clients? Of course he's upset. An agent gets bupkus from an author's deal with Amazon or from one self-pubbing with Amazon. Does he think that Barry Eisner is starving? (Granted, that's self-pubbing, but 0% of $0 is the same, whether it's self-pubbing or Amazon-pubbing).

Amazon Publishing is rumored to pay authors 50% of net royalties compare to the Big Publisher 25% of net royalties.

50% net royalties on a book sold at $9.99 is $3.5 (50% of 70% of $9.99)
25% net royalties on a book sold at $9.99 is $1.75 (25% of 70% of $9.99)

Self-Publisher gets 100% of net or $7 (100% of 70% of $9.99)


The disadvantage of signing with Amazon: no sales at B&N and indie bookstores.

{sigh}. I know of several pretty darned successful self-pubs who opted to be published by Amazon (Baker & Taylor, et al) rather than continuing in self-pubbing, for the SAME damn reasons that authors have chosen to be published, rather than publish themselves, for near-eternity; they don't want to have to do all the work that publishers do, and don't want to have to upfront the costs that publishers front, (and risk). They don't want the onus of marketing, or finding/hiring/paying editors, etc., etc., etc. So, instead of taking their 70% from KDP, they are taking a smaller percentage (not a boatload smaller, mind you) from B&T, Encore, and the like. Everyone behaves as though the publisher's percentage is some unearned gift...trust me, it's not.

The vast majority of authors, given the option, wouldn't choose to self-pub. They wouldn't. They do it because they don't believe that they'll make it into an agent's arms, won't get picked by BPH's or midlist imprints; OR, (and this is a big "OR"), they don't want to WAIT. They don't want to put in the time, to do pitches, to learn how to write inquiries; don't want to write magazine articles, don't want to do critique groups, don't want to take courses, and they damn sure don't want to read rejection letters...they just want to be "published authors." We see those folks all over the KDP forums, as well as in books that we stumble upon at Amazon and SW and Scribd and Wattpad, et al. This is not to say (to forestall misunderstandings) that all self-pubs are crappy authors; that's not what I'm saying. But there's a huge ocean of people who can't even construct sentences that are publishing themselves, and this is hardly a secret.

Back to Wylie: The Amazon Enmity is sooooooooo much like the Microsoft Hate.

(Quick aside: I look at a company like Microsoft, that's supported XP--XP!--since nearly the millenium, and Office 2003 for 11 years, has a founder that used his personal fortune to nearly single-handedly stamp out infant polio in India, [2.5 billion+ vaccinated children] which is roundly despised as "corporate evil." Then I look at Apple, with millions of slavishly-devoted fans, that tosses any remote pretense of support for a product within a few short years of selling it (not to mention iOS's, etc.), which has a founder that not only didn't donate any of his own billions to charity, but forbade and ceased all Apple corporate giving programs when he was reinstated, and the cognitive dissonance of all this selective "evil corporate hate" boggles me.)

More Back to Wylie: It's not rocket science to understand why an agent would loathe Amazon. They cut into his income, pure and simple. He gets a piece of his clients' action, and if their sales decrease because more competition exists, his income decreases. If authors that might have gone to him go to Amazon (like little a) or even self-pub, he gets nothing. Of course he's going to sound contemptuous ("Nothing that Amazon publishes is worth reading"). When you think about it, what are his options?

Hitch

[QuantumIguana]

Here are rough translations of a dozen lines from the interview:

1) Amazon’s publishing arm is a “publishing program that stands out for its idiocy.”

If Amazon makes money from it, if authors make money from it, then how is it idiocy? No, if it was really idiocy, he wouldn't be concerned about it. It would be a self-correcting problem that would go away all on its own.

2) Moreover: “Nothing that Amazon publishes is worth reading.”

Those much-maligned readers just might disagree. The scorn heaped on people for reading the "wrong" books is pretty heavy. Why trust readers at all, while we are at it. Perhaps people should be assigned books, like they are in school, and then they can write a report on it. Then when their reports are graded, they can be told what book they will be allowed to read next.

3) If what Amazon is doing in Germany is anything like what’s happening in the U.S., Amazon will “operate the most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine. No even moderately well-known author will get involved with Amazon Publishing, because bookstores will not carry these books. Amazon is not interested in print, only digital. This publishing concept is a dead end.”

While I don't think that print will vanish, digital is certainly not a dead end. I wonder how he managed to say that with a straight face. Getting into the dwindling bookstores just might not be an overwhelming concern.

If Amazon was operating the "most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine," this article would never have been written. There exist small publishing companies that many of us have never heard of. Surely Amazon is more relevant than they are, this Amazon is surely not the "most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine." He's scared of Amazon, and people aren't scared of the irrelevant.

6) Asked if he would advise young writers to apply for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, he said, “No, I would advise him to get on a soapbox in Manhattan or Munich and read from his novel. He would achieve a better audience there than with Amazon.”

Most unlikely.

12) In sum: “My advice is: if you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!”

Of course, he has no interest in what is best for authors, only what is best for himself. This is a classic take of the fox advising the chickens on henhouse defenses.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

. . .Of course, he has no interest in what is best for authors, only what is best for himself. This is a classic take of the fox advising the chickens on henhouse defenses.

Must say that was really good.

The sad thing is that some will listen .