http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-574...col;topStories
Quote:
"Jeff, One Lonely Guy" is the first book from Amazon Publishing, the retail giant's year-old New York imprint run by publishing industry veteran Larry Kirshbaum. It has won plaudits from Bret Easton Ellis, author of "American Psycho" and "Less Than Zero," who called the book "a legitimate new form of narrative." There have been only a few reviews, including one from Bookforum.com, which lamented the lack of Ragsdale's voice in the book, but nevertheless described it as "worth the read."
The book is slim by publishing industry standards -- a mere 138 pages. And while the messages are grouped into chapters with titles such as "Love Sucks" and "No God Created This Mess," there's no narrative, no storyline that has a beginning, middle or end. What's more, the book debuted a mere five months after Ragsdale posted his flyer, Usain Bolt-like speed in an industry that typically publishes books at meandering pace.
For Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, that's what makes "Jeff, One Lonely Guy" so exciting. It challenges preconceived notions about how publishing is done.
"We're most interested in working with authors that want to innovate, that want to experiment," Belle said in an interview with CNET. "What's a book? What's it becoming?"
They are questions that beg a much larger one: How is Amazon reshaping the way books, movies, and television programs are created?
Amazon is jumping headlong into the business of creating content because, more than any other company, it has the potent combination of a massive base of customers and the vast technical underpinning with which to bring those customers new ways of consuming books, movies, and television programs. And as that content becomes ever more digitized, Amazon wants to call the shots as to how those books and programs are created, delivered, and sold.
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I think they're over-selling the "reshaping" idea, but it is clear Amazon is exploring the whole content creation/acquistion process and not just relying on the well worn old paths.
The danger I see is that they could fall prey to Google syndrome: spending a lot of resources dabbling on fringe ventures with no great impact beyond hype generation.
TOUCHING BLUE does sound interesting. I'd go watch it if it makes it to theaters.