Amazon buys 62-year-old book publisher Avalon Books

Amazon's book selection is about to get a little more romantic, mysterious and cowboy-fied. Amazon is buying small publisher Avalon Books and its backlist of 3,000 titles. Avalon's books fall mainly in the romance, mystery and Western genres. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The move extends Amazon's ongoing creep deeper into the book publishing business. The company launched its first imprint in 2009, and now runs eight separate publishing lines. More recently, it began buying up rights from traditional publishers.