Besides spreading the good news about the sales of some of its newly released titles, Amazon Publishing’s Vice President Jeff Belle shared some interesting news to a field of literary agents and publishing industry professionals: Amazon Publishing is crossing the pond.
According to the letter, early next year the traditional-model publishing arm of Amazon will expand into Europe, with the current Seattle-based head Victoria Griffith leading the operation from its Luxembourg office. Larry Kirshbaum, who came on board at the beginning to head Amazon Publishing in New York, will take over both office locations in the US.
“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,” Belle stated.
The exciting book sale news announced that the November 20th release of Tim Ferriss’ The Four-Hour Chef has already sold more than 60,000 copies in this, its first week. Along with information on several other long-awaited titles came the announcement that Amazon Publishing would be releasing Kurt Vonnegut’s Sucker’s Portfolio, which will include never-before-published content from the author.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
