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Friday, January 17, 2014

A cheetah hunting gazelles

Digital Book World is running a fascinating analysis of current Amazon practices, plus a discussion of what is likely to happen next.


The strategy, it seems is for Amazon to behave like that swift predator, the cheetah, when it is hunting down gazelles.  But, while the actual cheetah is really just hunting for dinner, the virtual Amazon cheetah is hunting total dominance in the market.

According to the analogy, rival publishers are regarded as gazelles. That is, fair game. If they are limping, so much the better.  If they are not limping, then crippling them is an option -- everyone will remember the standoff between Macmillan and the mega-online-bookstore when Amazon removed the buy buttons from all listed Macmillan books.  It ain't fair, but it just might work.

So what is the future for this wily predator? The article posits that more publishers will be targeted, aligned with aggressive new marketing techniques, such as linking goods to books, and with developing Kindle Direct Publishing further and in new directions.

Personally, I think that Amazon has rival eBook distributors in its sights, but that is just my opinion.  Read the article to make up your own mind.

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