That doesn’t stop readers from writing their own spinoffs anyway: The largest fan fiction site, FanFiction.net, hosts millions of free stories. And in works like these — and the passionate readers who create them — Amazon sees the potential for profit.

On Wednesday, Amazon Publishing announced Kindle Worlds, “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so.” The company is making this work by securing licenses from existing entertainment properties and by paying royalties to both the original author and the fan fiction author.

So far, Kindle Worlds has licenses for three Alloy Entertainment properties: Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars and Vampire Diaries. Writers can publish “authorized stories” inspired by these properties and sell them in the Kindle Store; Amazon says it will add more licenses soon, in areas like “books, games, TV, movies and music.”

The fan fiction authors get a royalty of 35 percent for works of at least 10,000 words, and a royalty of 20 percent on works between 5,000 and 10,000 words. Amazon is also paying royalties to the original authors of the properties, but would not disclose that royalty rate.

Kindle Worlds is not a self-publishing platform like KDP. First of all, any works published through Kindle Worlds are published by Amazon Publishing — they’re not self-published, so the author doesn’t retain print or digital rights and doesn’t set the work’s price. The website notes that “Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright.” Second, Kindle Worlds won’t publish all of the works submitted to it; it will only accept some (though the company says it aims to accept as many as possible, as long as they adhere to content guidelines). Finally, “Amazon Publishing will set the price for Kindle Worlds stories. Most will be priced from $0.99 through $3.99.”

Kindle Worlds will officially launch in June with “over 50 commissioned works” from authors like Barbara Freethy, John Everson and Colleen Thompson. At that time, readers can also start submitting works to Kindle Worlds.

The podcast is sponsored by Amazon Publishing’s romance imprint, Montlake Romance. The first two featured titles – Crazy Little Thing by Tracy Brogan and The Second Chance Café by Alison Kent — were both published by Montlake, although USA Today, which first reported the news about the podcast, says that “the books discussed will span a variety of publishers and imprints, including indie-pubbed books.” (Many of those indie-pubbed books will likely be published through Amazon’s own KDP.)

The podcast host is Laura Roppé, a singer-songwriter and the author of Rocking the Pink: Finding Myself on the Other Side of Cancer, published by Seal Press in 2012.

There are a number of podcasts out there focused on romance books, including those from Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Romance Radio Network. One possible advantage of “Kindle Love Stories” is that, if it focuses primarily on titles published by Amazon, all of those titles should be available free to Kindle owners through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

“In this digital age, we don’t see why authors should have to wait six months to be paid,” Amazon’s VP of publishing Jeff Belle wrote in the letter. “Beginning with our March payment cycle, we will move to paying our authors on a monthly basis. More specifically: each month’s royalties will be released within 60 days of the end of that month, every month.  For example, royalties for sales in January will be released by March 31, royalties for sales in February will be released by April 30, etc.”

Most publishing houses pay royalties twice a year. Authors who self-publish through Amazon’s KDP and Createspace lready receive monthly royalties.

Belle also wrote that “Based on sales in February, Amazon Publishing now ranks as the 5th largest publisher on the U.S. Kindle platform (excluding free downloads but including KOLL loans, for which we pay authors).”

Full letter:

Friends,

The team at Amazon Publishing has been working to continually improve our business, with the goal of turning efficiencies into higher author royalties, faster payments and even more support for the books we publish.  Building a new business can take time and patience, and the feedback and encouragement we’ve received along the way from you has been invaluable in making us better.

We’re particularly excited to tell you about upcoming changes to the way we pay royalties.  In this digital age, we don’t see why authors should have to wait six months to be paid.  Beginning with our March payment cycle, we will move to paying our authors on a monthly basis.  More specifically: each month’s royalties will be released within 60 days of the end of that month, every month.  For example, royalties for sales in January will be released by March 31, royalties for sales in February will be released by April 30, etc.

We recognize this may create a little extra paperwork in some cases, but we feel this change is in the best interests of authors — we hope you’ll agree.  As with any such change in our business, our tireless Author Relations team is standing by to answer any questions you may have on this topic.

In other news, 2013 is off to a strong start.  Based on sales in February, Amazon Publishing now ranks as the 5th largest publisher on the US Kindle platform (excluding free downloads but including KOLL loans, for which we pay authors).  The latest book to reach the 100,000 copy threshold is 47North’s THE MONGOLIAD: BOOK ONE, the first installment in the epic Foreworld saga, written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland and Cooper Moo, which surpassed 100,000 copies in February.  Similarly, CRAZY LITTLE THING by Montlake author Tracy Brogan continues up the Kindle charts, also surpassing 100,000 copies in the last week of February.  Another Montlake bestseller, NOT QUITE DATING by Catherine Bybee exceeded the 100,000 copy milestone just last week as well.  Also of note is Christina McKenna’s “wittily and winningly-detailed” debut novel THE MISREMEMBERED MAN, which we acquired from Toby Press and re-published under AmazonEncore in 2010, re-entered the Kindle Top 10 in February on the strength of our backlist promotion, and is now on the verge of the 100,000 copy mark as a result.

Our AmazonCrossing imprint has also been on a roll lately. In January, THE BEGGAR KING by Oliver Pötzsch, the third installment in the bestselling Hangman’s Daughter series, debuted in the Kindle Top 10 to outstanding reviews, and just today surpassed 100,000 copies.  Translated from German by Lee Chadeayne, the Hangman’s Daughter series has been a breakout success, with over 800,000 copies sold to date (and occupying the top 4 slots in the US Kindle store, as of this writing).  In February, we launched the latest in our series of translations from Icelandic with REPLY TO A LETTER FROM  HELGA by Bergsveinn Birgisson, which garnered immediate praise as “a stunning work of art — resonant, earthy, heartbreaking”.  Meanwhile, in the other direction, our translations from English into German continue to surpass our expectations as well.  ABDUCTED by T.R. Ragan, itself a Kindle bestseller in the US and UK, was translated into German by AmazonCrossing as IM NETZ DES SPINNENMANNS in November, where it quickly reached #1 in our German Kindle store (combined English and German copies have already surpassed 100,000).  In all, for the month of February, six AmazonCrossing titles reached the Kindle Top 10 in Germany.

Meanwhile, Kindle Serials also continues to outperform our expectations.  Since the release of the first episode in its serialization, OPTION TO KILL by Andrew Peterson has sold over 70,000 copies and is now available as a complete book in both Kindle and trade paperback. And we are excited to see PINES, Blake Crouch’s Kindle bestseller, which has been called a “genre-bending, completely riveting thrill ride” of a novel, going into development at Fox and FX, with the pilot to be directed by M. Night Shamalyan.

We’re pleased with this strong growth overall, and in particular the results of our US and German translation publishing businesses, as well as Kindle Serials.  And yet we are also quite aware of the many improvements and inventions that lie ahead —as always your feedback is welcome and appreciated.  If you have any suggestions or questions about the new royalties process, or anything else about Amazon Publishing, please feel free to reach out to me directly.  –Jeff

Jeff Belle
Vice President
Amazon Publishing

Little A joins Amazon’s six other imprints, which focus on genres like romance and science fiction. Until now, literary fiction had been published under the general Amazon Publishing division in New York, and Little A will be part of that division. It will be overseen by senior editor Ed Park.

Upcoming titles from Little A will include James Franco’s novel Actors Anonymous — which Larry Kirshbaum signed back in 2011, and which will be published this October — among others. A digital-only series called Day One will focus on “short stories from debut writers”; those will be sold in the Kindle Singles store.

As with other titles from Amazon’s New York division, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s New Harvest imprint will distribute print versions of Little A titles.

Here’s the full mini-announcement:

“Little A is a literary fiction imprint under the Amazon Publishing Group, publishing novels, memoirs and story collections. The first titles to be published under Little A are A.L. Kennedy’s The Blue Book (on sale now), an intricate, heartbreaking story of psychics and cruise ships by the dazzling U.K. author; Jake Arnott’s The House of Rumour (on sale 3/19/13), which weaves the secret histories of science fiction and espionage into a modern classic; Jenny Davidson’s The Magic Circle (on sale 3/26/13), a literary thriller about the culture of gaming; and Shawn Vestal’ s Godforsaken Idaho (on sale 4/2/13), stories of the afterlife, the rugged Northwest, and the early days of Mormonism by a ferociously imaginative new writer. Other 2013 Little A titles will include Dan Kennedy’s American Spirit (on sale 5/28/13), Allison Lynn’s The Exiles (on sale 7/2/13), and James Franco’s Actors Anonymous (on sale 10/15/13).

Day One is a digital-only series within Little A that is focused on short stories from debut writers and is available in North America and in the U.K. The first title, Kodi Scheer’s, haunting, fabulist “When a Camel Breaks Your Heart” was released on February 5, 2013. On March 19, Day One will release “Monster” by McSweeney’s contributor Bridget Clerkin, in which a woman struggles to keep her dysfunctional family together amid unsettling events–the family dog goes missing and an unidentified, mysterious animal corpse washes up on the beach.”

Belle writes that “early next year, we will launch Amazon Publishing in Europe from our EU headquarters in Luxembourg.” Victoria Griffith, who headed Amazon Publishing in Seattle, will move to Luxembourg in early 2013 to run the operations. In her place, Larry Kirshbaum, publisher of Amazon Publishing New York, “will now assume editorial leadership for our Seattle and New York adult imprints, as well as Amazon Children’s Publishing.” Daphne Durham, who was editorial director, is promoted to editor-in-chief across Amazon’s adult imprints, reporting to Kirshbaum. Other staff changes:

Amazon veteran Amy Bates will oversee Operations across our entire publishing business.  West Coast Marketing chief Mikyla Bruder will oversee our global marketing efforts across all imprints.  Philip Patrick, who has been leading our rights and licensing team, will now lead our larger business development, rights and sales teams across all imprints.  And another long-time Amazon veteran, Brooke Gilbert, will continue to lead our dedicated Author Services team.

Belle also touted some sales numbers. Tim Ferriss’s The Four-Hour Chef, released November 20, “has already sold over 60,000 copies (print + Kindle),” he said. With Publishers Lunch reporting today that Four-Hour Chef sold 29,000 print copies in its first week (according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks print sales, including those through Amazon’s website), that suggests about half Four-Hour Chef‘s sales were digital.

Amazon Publishing now has five active Seattle-based imprints, mostly focused on genres like romance and thrillers, along with the general trade and children’s divisions in New York. Publishing industry veteran Kirshbaum was hired to launch the New York division in May 2011, and it published its first books this fall — including Ferriss’s Four-Hour Chef and former Laverne & Shirley star Penny Marshall’s memoir My Mother Was Nuts. Barnes & Noble and many independent bookstores refuses to carry Amazon print titles in their stores, which limits the distribution of Amazon Publishing titles and could affect the company’s ability to sign bestselling authors in future. But, as Belle notes in his letter, the company will now attempt to bring more English-language authors to a European audience.

Here is Belle’s full letter:

Dear Friends:

As we head into the holiday season, we have much to be thankful for at Amazon Publishing. We are especially thankful for our authors, who continue to keep us energized, and readers, who help get these books on Amazon bestseller lists. I am happy to report that thirteen of the Top 100 Kindle bestsellers for the month of October were by Amazon Publishing authors. In the past few months, we’ve welcomed several new authors into the 100,000-copies club: John Rector (ALREADY GONE), Sean Chercover (THE TRINITY GAME), Blake Crouch (PINES), Kendra Elliott (HIDDEN), Laurie Fabiano (ELIZABETH STREET), GM Ford (THICKER THAN WATER), Melinda Leigh (SHE CAN RUN), Alexis Harrington (HOME BY MORNING), Karin Slaughter (THORN IN MY SIDE), Michael Wallace (THE RIGHTEOUS) and Nelson DeMille (THE BOOK CASE).

We continue to be energized by readers’ reception for our authors and their books — so much so that we have some exciting news to share. Early next year, we will launch Amazon Publishing in Europe from our EU headquarters in Luxembourg. Vicky Griffith, who as Publisher of our West Coast Group, has been instrumental in launching our US business, will be relocating from Seattle after the New Year to help support this effort. We will begin staffing a team of editors and marketers, and ensure we are expanding the English language audience for our authors, with a focus on our English language bookstores on amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr,amazon.it and amazon.es.

As Vicky hops the pond, we will make a few organizational changes in the US, centralizing key functions and positioning us for continued growth.  Larry Kirshbaum, Publisher of our East Coast Group, will now assume editorial leadership for our Seattle and New York adult imprints, as well as Amazon Children’s Publishing. Daphne Durham will step into the role of Editor-in-Chief across all of our adult imprints, reporting to Larry. Amazon veteran Amy Bates will oversee Operations across our entire publishing business. West Coast Marketing chief Mikyla Bruder will oversee our global marketing efforts across all imprints. Philip Patrick, who has been leading our rights and licensing team, will now lead our larger business development, rights and sales teams across all imprints. And another long-time Amazon veteran, Brooke Gilbert, will continue to lead our dedicated Author Services team.

We remain determined to invent ways to help authors reach more readers. In July, for example, AmazonCrossing began translating  the first of our English language books into German. Already, twelve of these titles have appeared on the Kindle Top 100 list in Germany. At the same time, our Kindle Serials format has outperformed our expectations in the short time since our September launch — and we are thrilled to be publishing Kurt Vonnegut’s SUCKER’S PORTFOLIO, featuring seven never-before-published stories releasing in serialized form, over the next seven weeks. In September, based on overwhelming customer feedback, Amazon Studios optioned the film rights to Ania Ahlborn’s SEED, published in July by 47North. Short-form content has a home with Amazon Publishing as well: Thomas & Mercer published THE BOOK CASE by Nelson Demille as a Kindle Single in May (over 200,000 copies sold) and THORN IN MY SIDE by Karin Slaughter (over 100,000 copies sold).

We’re also very excited about some highly-anticipated new releases.  Tim Ferriss’ THE 4-HOUR CHEF released last week, and has already sold over 60,000 copies (print + Kindle) — more than any other non-fiction title on Amazon for the week, which included Black Friday. BONE RIVER by Megan Chance, which has been called “heartbreaking…complex and intriguing” by PW and “quietly powerful” by Booklist comes out December 4. THE BEGGAR KING, the “brilliant” third book in the highly-acclaimed Hangman’s Daughter series (over 500,000 copies sold) releases January 6. And THE RUSSIAN DONATION, winner of Germany’s Friedrich Glauser Prize, is being translated into English by Gerald Chapple and will be published by AmazonCrossing on January 22.

As our CEO likes to say, “It’s still day one.” That is especially true of Amazon Publishing. We have much work to do, and many challenges ahead of us, and we remain relentlessly focused on providing the best possible publishing experience for your authors.

Thank you again for your support.  If you have any questions about Amazon Publishing, as always, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

Jeff

P.S. If you’ve started your holiday shopping, check out HARRY POTTER PAGE TO SCREEN, THE COMPLETE FILMMAKING JOURNEY (COLLECTOR’S EDITION).  It’s available December 4.

Jeff Belle
Vice President
Amazon Publishing

“We’ve been energized by the early results across all of our imprints,” Belle writes:

Since December, our Thomas & Mercer imprint has sold over 250,000 copies of Ed McBain’s classic 87th Precinct series (available for the first time in digital). In December, 47North published The Book of Sith by Daniel Wallace, which has been called “one of the coolest Star Wars products ever made.” This summer, with the success of The Dark Monk (A Hangman’s Daughter Tale), AmazonCrossing author Oliver Pötzsch has now crossed the half-million copy mark in life-to-date sales. Also joining the half-million club as of last month is Karen McQuestion, author of the Kindle bestsellers A Scattered Life, Easily Amused and The Long Way Home.

At the end of July, we released The Trinity Game by Sean Chercover. It quickly rose to the #5 spot on our Kindle bestseller list, and is already well on its way to surpassing 100,000 copies. War Brides by Helen Bryan occupied the Kindle Top 10 for most of July and August, and has now sold over 300,000 Kindle copies.

Not surprisingly, Belle does not break down how many copies the books have sold in print versus Kindle books. A little under a year ago, I took a closer look at Amazon Publishing and discovered mediocre print sales on most titles.

I love that the Book of Sith hyperlink above leads to…a review on Barnes & Noble’s sci-fi blog.

Belle claims that authors who’d previously worked with other publishers are doing better with Amazon:

The Detachment, by Barry Eisler, published last September by Thomas & Mercer, has sold over three times the copies of any of Barry’s previous New York Times bestselling books. New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway joined Montlake Romance as our launch author, and The Other Guy’s Bride has also gone on to sell more than three times the copies of her other recent titles.

“We are as determined as ever to make sure that Amazon Publishing authors reach a huge audience,” Belle writes. “In particular, we will continue to heavily market and promote them to our 180 million customers around the world, through online and offline advertising, our websites, through email, and on millions of Kindle and non-Kindle devices.”

Full letter below.

Dear Friends,

The last year has been one of exciting growth for Amazon Publishing: We published the first titles from our Montlake, Thomas & Mercer, and 47North imprints based in Seattle, and opened our New York office, which is focused on non-fiction and children’s books. In January we completed the acquisition of Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books; in June the acquisition of Avalon Books; and in August, we closed on the acquisition of over 1,000 backlist titles from Dorchester Publishing. And just last week, we announced a new initiative that we’re very excited about — Kindle Serials.

We’ve been energized by the early results across all of our imprints. Since December, our Thomas & Mercer imprint has sold over 250,000 copies of Ed McBain’s classic 87th Precinct series (available for the first time in digital). In December, 47North published The Book of Sith by Daniel Wallace, which has been called “one of the coolest Star Wars products ever made.” This summer, with the success of The Dark Monk (A Hangman’s Daughter Tale), AmazonCrossing author Oliver Pötzsch has now crossed the half-million copy mark in life-to-date sales. Also joining the half-million club as of last month is Karen McQuestion, author of the Kindle bestsellers A Scattered Life, Easily Amused and The Long Way Home.

At the end of July, we released The Trinity Game by Sean Chercover. It quickly rose to the #5 spot on our Kindle bestseller list, and is already well on its way to surpassing 100,000 copies. War Brides by Helen Bryan occupied the Kindle Top 10 for most of July and August, and has now sold over 300,000 Kindle copies. We’re thrilled about our list for the rest of 2012, which includes Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels (all 14 books), as well as inaugural titles from our New York imprint, such as My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall, and The 4-Hour Chef by Timothy Ferriss.

We are especially focused on increasing the audience for our authors. The Detachment, by Barry Eisler, published last September by Thomas & Mercer, has sold over three times the copies of any of Barry’s previous New York Times bestselling books. New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway joined Montlake Romance as our launch author, and The Other Guy’s Bride has also gone on to sell more than three times the copies of her other recent titles. These authors, along with Amazon Publishing, are helping to redefine what it means to be a bestseller. We’re extremely proud of the results so far.

We are as determined as ever to make sure that Amazon Publishing authors reach a huge audience. In particular, we will continue to heavily market and promote them to our 180 million customers around the world, through online and offline advertising, our websites, through email, and on millions of Kindle and non-Kindle devices. Based in large part on our long experience as a bookseller, we are confident that this expansive marketing and promotional support will continue to yield strong sales results for our authors.

Our goal remains to invent new and better ways to connect authors with readers. I know you feel the same. So much of the work we are doing would not be possible without your support and we appreciate every submission and opportunity to do business with you and your clients. We also know that we’re new — we have more ahead of us than behind us (both opportunities and challenges) — yet we remain relentlessly focused on what we can do to provide the best possible publishing experience to you and your authors.

Thank you again for your support. If you have any questions about Amazon Publishing, as always, please feel free to reach out to me directly. — Jeff

Jeff Belle
Vice President
Amazon Publishing

Dorchester primarily published romance, Westerns and horror books. Dorchester had been in economic trouble for years. In the auction for Dorchester’s assets — where Amazon was the only bidder, the company confirmed – “Dorchester authors were offered the opportunity to join Amazon Publishing and receive the full back royalties that Dorchester indicated were owed.”

“Working with the Dorchester author community during this auction process has been a tremendous experience for all of us,” said Philip Patrick, Amazon Publishing’s business development director. “We are happy to be able to pay their back royalties and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the Amazon Publishing family.”

The acquired Dorchester titles will be doled out among Amazon Publishing’s various West Coast imprints and published in both print and digital formats: “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror titles to 47North; Romance titles to Montlake Romance; Mystery and Thriller titles to Thomas & Mercer; Westerns and other titles to AmazonEncore.”

Also, “Under the terms of Amazon’s bid, any former Dorchester Publishing authors that chose not to work with Amazon Publishing will have their rights revert back to them to pursue other publishing opportunities including self-publishing via the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.”

In June, Amazon Publishing acquired Avalon Books, which published mystery, romance and Westerns.

Release

Amazon Publishing Acquires Publication Contracts to Over 1000 Books from Dorchester Publishing

 SEATTLE—August 30, 2012—Amazon Publishing today announced that it has acquired through an auction the publication contracts of over 1000 books from Dorchester Publishing. As part of the process, Dorchester authors were offered the opportunity to join Amazon Publishing and receive the full back royalties that Dorchester indicated were owed.

“Working with the Dorchester author community during this auction process has been a tremendous experience for all of us,” said Philip Patrick, Business Development Director at Amazon Publishing. “We are happy to be able to pay their back royalties and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the Amazon Publishing family.”

“Amazon Publishing is breathing new life into my series, and I’m very excited to see what the future holds,” said Tracy Madison, award-winning author of the Gypsy Magic series.

“I am excited beyond words about being offered this chance to join Amazon Publishing.  I cannot thank them enough for stepping in and giving former Dorchester authors the chance to move ahead,” said Deborah MacGillivray, author and agent of the late Dawn Thompson, author of The Ravening. “Dawn literally lived for her writing. Amazon Publishing is helping me safeguard Dawn’s legacy, and to see that new readers can continue to find her books,” said Dawn’s sister, Diane Thompson.

“This new relationship will enable the works of countless talented fiction writers to serve their established readers and reach new ones across the globe,” said Gregg Loomis, author of The Bonaparte Secret.

“The transition from Dorchester to Amazon Publishing means that our authors will now be able to reach so many more readers and markets worldwide than they ever could before.  That truly is something to celebrate,” said Vicky Piekarski and Jon Tuska, co-owners of Golden West Literary Agency, in a joint statement.

Going forward, the acquired Dorchester titles will be published under the appropriate Amazon Publishing imprints: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror titles to 47North; Romance titles to Montlake Romance; Mystery and Thriller titles to Thomas & Mercer; Westerns and other titles to AmazonEncore. Titles will be available both in print and as Kindle books. Under the terms of Amazon’s bid, any former Dorchester Publishing authors that chose not to work with Amazon Publishing will have their rights revert back to them to pursue other publishing opportunities including self-publishing via the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

Amazon Publishing is the publishing arm of Amazon.com. Amazon Publishing’s West Coast Group includes imprints AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, and 47North. Amazon Publishing’s East Coast Group publishes adult trade, children’s and young adult titles. For more information about all imprints of Amazon Publishing, visit www.amazon.com/amazonpublishing. Amazon Publishing is a brand used by Amazon Content Services, LLC.

The books are Oliver Pötzsch’s bestselling “The Hangman’s Daughter” and the sequel to that book, “The Dark Monk,” released on Tuesday.

“The Hangman’s Daughter,” with a digital list price of $9.99, is $3.99 in the Kindle Store (or free in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library). It’s $8.99 in Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, $9.99 in the iBookstore and $7.69 at Kobo.

“The Dark Monk,” with a digital list price of $9.99, is $7.69 in the Kindle Store (or free in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library). It’s $8.99 for Nook, $9.99 in the iBookstore and $7.69 at Kobo.

I can’t find either book in Google’s digital bookstore, Books for Google Play, or in the Sony (SNE) Bookstore. Update, 6/15/12: Both books are now in the Sony Bookstore too. “The Dark Monk” is $7.99 there and “The Hangman’s Daughter” is $9.90.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which is publishing the print versions of all the titles from Amazon Publishing’s New York imprint, is also listed as the publisher of the non-Kindle e-book editions. Amazon previously announced that it would sell James Atlas’s upcoming “Amazon Lives” series of mini biographies through all digital retailers, but didn’t say at the time whether it would expand that policy to other titles too.

Now we see that in the case of at least two published titles, Amazon is making them available to other digital bookstores, and the bookstores are agreeing to carry them. Barnes & Noble had said it would not carry Amazon print titles in its stores, but apparently it doesn’t mind selling some e-books online. I’ll head to my local Barnes & Noble later today to see if “The Dark Monk” is available there too.

See also

Barnes & Noble: We will not carry Amazon Publishing titles in our stores

Amazon will sell some e-books beyond the Kindle Store

Well, here’s how Amazon Publishing will get its books into Barnes & Noble

Larry Kirshbaum shares many more details on how Amazon Publishing will work

• “Despite the fact that Amazon is a very large company on the retail side, as you all know, we’re really a very small publisher. We’re a startup. We only have about 20, 25 people. It’s a very intimate group…It’s a small publisher. In a lot of ways, we are operating it as a small publishing house. We, of course, have this enormous publishing capability because of our websites and stores [not sure what he means by stores here -- bookstores?] and our database and all that which we are trying to use to innovative ends to publish well…I like to model it on the companies I worked for for many years, Warner and Little, Brown.”
• Dan Menaker chimes in: “I’ve been in Larry’s office and the offices and I’ll say I’ve never been in a more sort of welcomingly barebones, to-the-point office….I was really impressed with the atmosphere.”
• “These new reading devices like the Kindle — have to get a little plug in there — they are a reader’s dream because if I decide I want to read Dan Menaker’s book…you just download it and click, click, click and 30 seconds later, you’ve got it. And so although I do still love bookstores and spend a lot of time–I love the Hampton bookstores, in fact–it’s a real readers delight to be able to get a book inside of a minute and just start reading because you read a review or whatever.”
• One of the books that Amazon Publishing will release this fall is “Hillbilly Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus. “This is the kind of book that does very, very well in the heartland of America, and I’ve always liked the idea, coming from Chicago, that we publish for the whole country. We don’t just publish for New York.”
• Amazon is also publishing “Why Have Kids?” by Jessica Valenti, the founder of the well-known blog Feministing.
• Amazon is publishing “a lot of novels. I don’t want to make this a sales presentation, but a LOT of novels. All of you novelists out there, we’re open for business and I think…literary novels are going to be our real mainstay.”
• Marketing people join editorial acquisition meetings because “we like to consider the whole arc of the publication process.” Kirshbaum’s office “triages what books we really want to go after, we look in our databases to see how either the author has been published before, or how the earlier books have done in the Amazon store. We also get Nielsen data.” Then “we do go to Seattle for approval before we make an offer.”
• “The big problem publishers have is this kind of auction fever that develops on brand-name authors where the price just goes very, very high and it is hard to earn back and make a profit. Our philosophy is going to be to publish across a broad spectrum and to do a lot of books that are discovery books, probably aren’t going to have huge advances but we’re going to put a lot of marketing money into it.”
• They are publishing about 40 books a year, “somewhere between 3 and 4 books a month.”
• “I know there have been criticisms of Amazon in the press and from some sources, but the agents have by and large been extremely excited about the fact that we can publish in a different way. They love the idea of the database, that we can actually reach readers directly, that we can use — of course all of you who are, I’m sure, Amazon customers know the suggestible idea — if you like X, you’ll like Y. We’ll be the Y. We’re going to show some really innovative marketing ideas to sell books in ways that they’re not being sold right now.”
• “I’m a huge fan of self-publishing. I say to all of you, each and every one, if you are writing a book, first choice is to find an agent, second choice would be to put it up, there are a number of — we have Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble has…[DM fills in: PubIt] PubIt, there’s a number of authors, what’s the one in Indianapolis, Authors Unlimited, you can find them on Google, whatever.”
• “In terms of finding an agent, I recommend you go into bookstores and you look in the acknowledgments and see books that you really admire. Look in the acknowledgments and usually the author will thank their agent. No better way to start a letter to an agent than to say, I just read XYZ and I saw they said wonderful things about you and I wondered if you would take a look at what I have.”
• On promoting a self-published book: “Go around locally to start and give talks if you can. Do your own publicity. Maybe even pay for a small ad in a local paper. Of course, also, I recommend going into bookstores as well and have some copies printed up…take some actual physical copies and see if a bookstore will put a few on the counter in a prominent position. Build from there.”
• “We’re very, very much looking for middle-grade…I think chapter books and middle-grade books are the area that’s next.”
• “There’s no question that we are looking for books that show talent but maybe they’re not quite ready for prime time, but we can develop it with the author and go from there.”
• “We feel that because we do have more direct access, as an in-house company, to the database, that we can take a book and expose it to readers that have read or like or bought books of similar interest…that’s a good way to launch a book.”
• “Every book we buy, because we only publish 4 a month, is going to be special.”
• “Houghton Mifflin, which is a very, very fine publisher, a very wonderful company based in Boston and New York…they will be distributing our books to bookstores. We are very interested obviously in selling to everybody. Our book distribution to libraries is going to be a very important part of our mix too because that’s where a lot of books get started.”
• “In addition to the books that we are doing both electronically and physically we’re going to be doing a certain number of e-books only and those are going to be the discovery books.”

Many thanks to Stony Brook for providing me with a recording of the session.

*Yeah, I know, it’s long! But the whole conversation was interesting and I figured that you all would prefer more direct quotes to read, with less editorial commentary from me because we have all heard a large variety of pro- and anti-Amazon publishing arguments at this point — and this interview is not likely to change anyone’s mind but should be interesting for both sides.

That said, if you wanted to pull one thing out of here, I would note how many times he mentions physical bookstores.

Amazon announced today that it’s acquired a ten-year license for the North American rights to the print and digital James Bond backlist, as well as James Bond author Ian Fleming’s two nonfiction titles. All of the books will be reissued by Amazon Publishing’s mystery and thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer, starting this summer.

“We believe that Amazon Publishing has the ability to place the books back at the heart of the Bond brand, balancing traditional publishing routes with new technologies and new ways of reaching our readers,” Ian Fleming Publications managing director Corinne Turner said in the release.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Bond e-books “will be initially available only via Amazon’s Kindle e-book store.” That means that Barnes & Noble will likely refuse to carry the print books.

Penguin had held world English print rights to the books, but suggested to The Bookseller that renewing those rights was not worth the high cost. Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated that it will spend large sums of money on acquiring titles, but publishers likely did not suspect that the company was in the running for the James Bond books.

How big a deal is this?

The James Bond books have sold 100 million copies worldwide. Of the 16 titles that Amazon is acquiring, the “newest,” Octopussy and the Living Daylights, was published in 1966. Daniel Craig appears in a new Bond movie, “Skyfall,” this autumn — it is the twenty-third Bond film and is not based on a Fleming title.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s when the books were released, they were only semi-hits in the U.S. The movies have been much more popular here; they’ve grossed a little over $5 billion. This is to say that “James Bond” is a very recognizable brand — and a symbolic win for Amazon, at what was likely a very high price — but that does not necessarily translate into huge book sales in 2012.