Building permits flagged for the media Amazon‘s newest bookstore location, back home in Bellevue, WA, which was then confirmed by the company. They say they are now hiring personnel for the store, which is Amazon’s tenth known bookstore so far. Further underscoring Amazon’s ambition for these stores is the wording in this recently updated listing for a program manager, launch, for Amazon Books: “The books category team is hiring a Program Manager to develop and execute scalable launch plans to grow and improve our business. As the Program Manager, Launch, your job is to make it easier, faster, and more efficient to launch a store…. This is a key role in allowing our bookstore business to scale.
In the UK, after initial resistance, Amazon has agreed to remove four holocaust denial books from sale.
In the US, the Washington Post notes that the resurgence of interest in George Orwell’s 1984 means that even Costco is carrying the paperback now.
Libro.fm has officially gone live with a digital audiobook subscription program that’s available in over 280 indie bookstore locations. Their basic terms are comparable to Audible’s — the first audiobook is 99 cents (rather than free), and it’s $14.99 a month thereafter, for one audiobook per month. The company’s benefits chart also indicates that they “pay a fair rate to authors and publishers.”