Amazon made itself the world’s largest book retailer. Now, it’s solidifying its industry dominance by building its own line of published books. Amazon is responsible for around 72 per cent of new adult book sales made online and 49 per cent of all new book sales. Contributing to this is its publishing arm. For example, on Amazon’s romance best-seller list (as of January 9), 79 of 100 titles were promoted on Kindle Unlimited; 15 were published by the tech giant itself. (Wall Street Journal)

Talking point: Through promotion tools like Amazon First Reads and Kindle Unlimited, the company has lifted obscure titles into the mainstream, giving a distinct advantage to authors who release through Amazon Publishing. Amazon Prime, which has over 100 million members, also contributes to this advantage, offering one free title through Amazon First Reads every month. Amazon is following in Netflix’s footsteps, but for the book industry, publishing work that’s been rejected by the major houses.