The Truth About Amazon Publishing

Amazon isn’t exactly lacking for praise these days, and much of it is deserved. The company has revolutionized digital publishing: Its Kindle sparked the e-book boom, its e-bookstore has the widest selection of titles online, and its easy-to-use publishing platform has made self-publishing a legitimate and lucrative option for some authors. Amazon, which made its fortune selling other publishers’ books, is now pushing hard into the business of signing up and publishing its own authors, in both digital and print. Yet beyond these bullish prognostications, there’s been little effort to gauge the success of Amazon’s nascent publishing efforts.

The company has published books since 2009, ranging from literature in translation to romance and thrillers. Many of the authors had previously self-published their books; others left traditional publishers to work with Amazon. Amazon Publishing has released 149 titles across its first six imprints since 2009, with an additional 114 slated to be released between November 2011 and October 2013. Meanwhile, Amazon will release “more than 100 titles” this fall, which suggests that some planned titles aren’t yet on the website. The 263 titles provide a fairly comprehensive look at what Amazon has published so far and where it is headed.

Here are some findings:

• 261 of the 263 titles are available as print books as well as digital books.
• Print almost always means trade paperback. (Just 13 titles available in hardcover)
• The average sale price of an Amazon Publishing paperback is $9.92. (The average price of a trade paperback in 2010 was $10.14, according to publishing research firm R. R. Bowker.)
• The average price of an Amazon Publishing e-book is $6.91. (The average price of an e-book in 2010 was $5.75, according to Bowker.)
• The books are heavily reviewed by customers (more on that later). Amazon Publishing titles have, on average, 47 reviews, with an average star rating of 4.09.