NYTimes reports on Amazon’s foray into publishing:

(Russell Grandinetti) pointed out, though, that the landscape was in some ways changing for the first time since Gutenberg invented the modern book nearly 600 years ago. “The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,” he said. “Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity.”

Amazon has been launching imprints for the last year or so, including romance imprint Montlake Romance, thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer, and most recently sci-fi imprint 47North. Nothing new here, this article has been a long time coming.