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Amazon Publishing inks deal to sell ebooks through competitors

Amazon Publishing inks deal to sell ebooks through competitors

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Amazon's East Coast Publishing Group will make its general interest titles available through other retailers including Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo.

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Nook GlowLight comparison (800px)
Nook GlowLight comparison (800px)

A division of Amazon Publishing has signed a deal with a global book distributor that will allow competing retailers to sell Amazon ebooks, paidContent reported today. The deal is significant because Amazon's relatively-new publishing unit had been jockeying to keep a monopoly on the ebook versions of its titles while attempting to sell physical copies in stores, creating tension with retailers like Barnes & Noble.

Amazon recently started loosening its grip, allowing some ebooks to be sold outside the Amazon Kindle Store. This new deal will officially make a broad selection of Amazon titles available to retailers, potentially including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Adobe Digital Editions. PaidContent notes that even Apple could potentially start selling Amazon titles, which would be ironic since Apple allegedly went so far as to break the law in its cutthroat competition with Amazon.

The deal is between Amazon’s East Coast Group, the retailer's general interest imprint, and CoreSource, the far-reaching digital publishing arm of Ingram Content Group. There's no guarantee that retailers will decide to stock Amazon titles, but the publisher has some compelling bait: The 4-Hour Chef, by bestseller-machine Tim Ferriss, will be released by Amazon this fall.