Dropping Profits Sends Amazon In Odd Directions

tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post has a story detailing how Amazon has purchased the rights to turn a recently published book into a feature-length movie. The article also outlines other 'strange directions' Amazon has taken in response to declining profits and a plummeting stock price, including moving into the grocery business and producing original live webcasts and streaming shows."

Comments

We'll Tell You What You Like

[eldavojohn]

The book, which was published in May by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a division of German media giant Bertelsmann AG, was slow to be reviewed by mainstream outlets. But Amazon sent galleys to 100 of the site's top customer reviewers, who lauded it. That helped propel the book to the top of Amazon's fiction list, much the way bloggers and other non-mainstream media outlets such as YouTube create groundswells of their own. Positive reviews followed, in The Washington Post, USA Today and elsewhere.

Is it just me or does it seem like Amazon selected a book from an unknown author and made sure the public liked it. Most books are good--if they weren't, they wouldn't be published. The fact that it's sold only 30,000 copies and they're already seeking a movie deal tells you something. Hell, I've read Stanislaw Lem novels that have sold millions of copies world wide and only one has been made into a movie.

They probably got him to sign over the rights for nothing and then started pushing the book to set up the movie:

Amazon did not disclose how much it paid author Keith Donohue for the movie rights...

Donohue would not disclose how much he was paid for the rights to his book, but offered, "I'm still here," meaning his day job.

Poor guy. Sounds like another Anthony Burgess who sold the rights to make A Clockwork Orange into a movie to The Rolling Stones for around $5,000.

This kind of reminds me of a media outlet gone wrong. Or American Idol informing people of what good music is. You really have to wonder if Amazon found this book and said "this is a really good book" or if they said "find me a book that will translate well to the big screen."

You want to make money? Find an acceptable product or well known name and shove it down America's throat. Instant cash. Examples: Mission Impossible 2, corporate boy bands with music written by teams of people, any media that follows a standard high selling formula, etc. Next up? Amazon studios presents their new movie ... "A Revenue Stream We Hope to Tap."

In TFA, they even admit it:

No longer content to remain in the online retail market, Amazon.com is heading into the movie business...

My problem with amazon

[vossman77]

Amazon used to be so organized, but now its categories are vitually worthless. I search for USB thumb drive, I get 10,000 thing unrelated to it even when I'm in the correct category I get non-thumb drives and there are several nice thumb drive not in the correct category. For computer stuff now I go to newegg.com, at actually organized.

Re:Prepare to be toppled!

[Alex P Keaton in da]

2 possible paths:

A. Make a big budget movie even though you are a retailer...
B. ????

-or-

A. Get rid of the whole thing where someone spends half an hour shopping on your site, filling their cart, thinking that they are getting a good deal, but when they get to the checkout they find that each item was from a different seller and all the shipping and handling is separate, so it adds like $60 to the bill.... Yeah, get rid of that, and then B may be:
B. Profit!!!!