Amazon Publishing marches on

[fjtorres]

From Publishers Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...arches-on.html

Amazon Publishing may have scaled back its plans to have a major New York City trade publishing presence since the departure of Larry Kirshbaum in early 2014, but the company still continues to expand its overall operation. The division is now composed of 14 imprints, based in six cities, and it’s set to publish about 1,200 titles in 2015. Though it was largely focused on commercial fiction when it launched in 2009, Amazon Publishing is now increasing its investments in such nonfiction areas as narrative nonfiction, memoir, and biography, according to Jeff Belle, v-p of Amazon Publishing, who responded to questions via email.

Grand Haven is the site of Brilliance Publishing, which was known as Brilliance Audio when Amazon acquired the company in 2007. Since the acquisition, Amazon has built Brilliance into a full-service publisher of print, digital, and audiobooks. Brilliance also includes the Grand Harbor imprint, which is devoted to spirituality and self-help books, and Amazon’s newest imprint, Waterfall Press, which is aimed at the Christian market, and published its first titles in February 2014.

In addition to its own publishing program, Brilliance now handles all print distribution for Amazon Publishing imprints with the exception of titles that Amazon sublicenses to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which releases them under the New Harvest imprint.

Belle said that Amazon Publishing is now the second-largest publisher on the Kindle platform in the U.S. With its strong Kindle presence, it is not surprising that Amazon Publishing sales skew more heavily toward digital than the larger trade houses do (e-books make up 30% of total revenue at a number of these houses). Despite the heavier reliance on e-book sales, however, Amazon Publishing remains committed to publishing print books, according to Belle. “We’re encouraged by the strong growth in the business,” he said.

One area where Amazon Publishing has established a strong position is in publishing translated books through AmazonCrossing. According to statistics compiled by Chad Post’s Three Percent blog, in 2014, AmazonCrossing released 44 English translations of titles that were originally published overseas—more than any other U.S. house. Amazon plans to increase that number to 70 this year, while also releasing more than 200 German-language titles through its Munich office.

Belle said Amazon Publishing now employs several hundred people and has plans to publish as many as 2,000 titles in 2016. Among the books he expects to do well this year are Her Final Breath, by Robert Dugoni; The Werewolf of Bamberg, by Oliver Potzsch; The Doctor Is In, by Ruth Westheimer (aka Dr. Ruth); and No Ordinary Billionaire, by J.S. Scott.

More at the source, including a listing of Amazon Publishing imprints.

Looks like the bulk of their publishing empire is HQ'ed in Michigan.
Cheaper than Manhattan as well as closer to their mainstream readers.

[Pulpmeister]

I hope they're not using Google to do the translations...

[murg]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

I hope they're not using Google to do the translations...

What? From Michiganese to English?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by murg

What? From Michiganese to English?

[frahse]

Amazon has been beneficial to my small niche in the book world.

I hope they keep expanding.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by frahse

Amazon has been beneficial to my small niche in the book world.

I hope they keep expanding.

I've certainly enjoyed the AMAZON CROSSING translated titles I've picked up.