Amazon is expanding its original publishing efforts to Europe and is also shaking up its publishing division’s structure, Publishing VP Jeff Belle announced in a letter to literary agents Wednesday...Belle writes that “early next year, we will launch Amazon Publishing in Europe from our EU headquarters in Luxembourg.” Victoria Griffith, who headed Amazon Publishing in Seattle, will move to Luxembourg in early 2013 to run the operations. In her place, Larry Kirshbaum, publisher of Amazon Publishing New York, “will now assume editorial leadership for our Seattle and New York adult imprints, as well as Amazon Children’s Publishing.” Daphne Durham, who was editorial director, is promoted to editor-in-chief across Amazon’s adult imprints, reporting to Kirshbaum.
You can go read the whole letter over at PaidContent. There has always been a split between Amazon's Seattle and New York publishing branches—Seattle seems to be the home of genre books, while New York is where the prestige, general-interest titles are supposed to be published. I hear there's been some internal strife between the two divisions for some time now, and it's probably not a good sign for Amazon's Seattle publishing wing that the New York guy is now the head of both divisions.
Let's hope this doesn't result in Seattle losing some publishing jobs. One of the things I've admired about Amazon is the way they've shaken up the publishing world by not being based out of New York City like every other goddamned major publishing concern. But Amazon's choices since then—basing their literary operation out of NYC, unveiling their new Kindle Fires in New York and Los Angeles—have not demonstrated the greatest confidence in Seattle as a literary center.
