Following up on its announcement of a romance publishing imprint, Amazon has announced it will also launch an imprint called Thomas & Mercer—named for the streets by its Seattle headquarters—this fall, to publish mystery titles. The titles will be available in print, Kindle, and audio formats, from Amazon itself and from national and independent booksellers.
The imprint will launch with four titles: Resuscitation by D M Annechino, Stirred by J A Konrath and Blake Crouch, The Immortalists by Kyle Mills and Already Gone by John Rector.
It seems clear Amazon is fully prepared to jump into the publishing game. It already made a substantial offer in the Amanda Hocking book deal auction, and only lost out due to its insistence on Amazon exclusivity for the e-book. It will be interesting to see how the exclusivity clause plays with other would-be Amazon authors.
Wait–wasn’t Konrath the one who said he was going to self-publish because publishers don’t add enough value? Could it be that he was simply engaging in a negotiating play?
Rob Preece
Publisher
@Rob – Well, for him, publishers *at that time* didn’t add enough value. This is a new publisher, and apparently it does.