This is a very interesting deal but not just because of the two-year Amazon exclusivity.
The big news here is that the Wylie Agency is now also a publisher, in competition with the BPHs that hold the print book rights.
Think about it; the BPHs don't generally accept unsolicited manuscripts, they only deal with agents. The agents are, in effect, the top-level gatekeepers, the content feeders to the BPHs. And they are *bypassing* the BPHs and going straight to the retailer.
Yes, it's only for ebooks. For now.
But nothing stops them from taking back the print rights at some future time, deoending on the contracts in question. Or, at some future data (and pretty soon, I suspect) an agent running into a surefire million-seller might decide *not* to shop the book to any BPH but rather front it themselves.
Disintermediation in action.
The publishers have farmed out so much of the publishing process they are at serious risk of being cut out of the loop altogether.
Two things:
1- this is *not* the first such deal; last December Stephen Covey's Books were signed through Rosetta Books to a similar tied-exclusive deal.
2- The BPHs have litigated (and lost) ebook rights for backlist titles that predate electronic rights clauses. So any book contracts that do not explicitly assign ebook rights along with print and/or audio rights reside by default with the author. And their agent.
One could say this is a *true* Agency Model where the author and their agent license the book rights straight to the retailer. No BPH required.
Expect a lot of established authors to take a look at this and decide that instead of fighting the BPHs over royalty rates they can simply get an Agency to front them. The Agency gets a bigger cut, the author gets a bigger cut, the BPH gets zilch.
Guess it's true, "what goes around comes around".