Amazon dives deeper into publishing with children's books purchase
Amazon continues to delve into owning more original content with a new book publishing deal.
The online retail giant has inked a deal with Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books to acquire over 450 titles from its U.S. children’s books business, including the very familiar title, The Night Before Christmas.
Amazon will publish the acquired books under its New York publishing unit. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
The motivation behind the purchase is that this can establish a stronger foundation for Amazon Publishing, especially for children's and young adult books.
Amazon Publishing vice president Jeff Belle explained in a statement that "the children’s book market segment presents a unique opportunity to innovate in both print and digital formats."
And since many of these titles are not readily available as eBooks, we see a chance to connect a terrific group of authors and illustrators with more readers. We also see the potential for similar deals across other categories in the future.
We could see the fruits of this shift for Amazon Publishing soon on other Amazon products, especially the Kindle Fire. Past Kindle products haven't tapped into the children's book market as much as one of Amazon's major competitors has.
On the e-reader front, Barnes & Noble has made the strongest strides up to now when it comes to providing more children's books, especially interactive titles, than other tablet makers on its products. Amazon's latest move will likely ignite more competition in this market.
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