Amazon's new imprints give opportunities to debut authors, short story writers

Amazon's Little A imprint will release novels, memoirs, and story collections, while Day One will focus on short stories and new writers.

Good news for novelists, memoirists, and especially short story writers: Amazon Publishing is open for business.

The online retailer-cum-publisher has launched two new imprints, a literary fiction imprint called “Little A” and a digital-only imprint, “Day One.”

The imprints will give writers more choices, especially short story writers who often have few options for publishing their works. As Good E-Reader put it, “both [imprints] are meeting a tremendous need in the industry.” 

Little A will publish novels, memoirs, and story collections, including a spate of titles being released this month and throughout the year. They include “The Blue Book,” by A.L. Kennedy; “The House of Rumor,” by Jake Arnott; “The Magic Circle,” by Jenny Davidson; “Godforsaken Idaho,” by Shawn Vestal; “American Spirit,” by Dan Kennedy; “The Exiles,” by Allison Lynn; and perhaps the most high-profile, “Actors Anonymous,” by actor James Franco, which is set to release Oct. 15. 

The digital-only Day One will focus largely on short stories and the works of debut writers. Pieces will be sold as Kindle Singles, giving many would-be writers a golden opportunity.

“While long form journalism and e-novellas have taken off thanks in large part to digital publishing, short story authors are still feeling the frustration of being relegated to anthologies or trying to swim their titles in the sea of other 99cent-ebooks without a platform for discovery,” writes Good E-Reader. Day One, it says, “... will ... host a much-needed home for short story authors.”

Day One’s titles include “When a Camel Breaks Your Heart,” by Kodi Scheer and “Monster,” by Bridget Clerkin.

Little A and Day One join six other Amazon publishing imprints, launched in 2010 with the creation of the Amazon Publishing model. 

Whatever book biz foes have to say about the mega-retailer and its overwhelming impact on the industry, we’ve got to hand it to Amazon on this one – its publishing model and these two new imprints provide a home to hundreds of writers (and novels, memoirs, and short stories) that might otherwise never have had one.

Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.