Looks like Ian McEwan and Stephen Covey have company in the Amazon exclusives club! Gavin De Becker, author of “The Gift of Fear”, has an exclusive with the Kindle Store for one year. This is probably Amazon’s best defense against the agency model that’s all the rage among scared publishers; Amazon guarantees themselves great content, the author gets a raise, and the consumer wins too!
And if you don’t know who Gavin de Becker is (I didn’t!), Amazon’s press release has some details:
“The nationally bestselling ‘The Gift of Fear’ is a perennial bestseller in its category, and de Becker’s books have resonated throughout the years with our customers,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. “We’re excited to work with Mr. de Becker in sharing these exclusive electronic versions of his books, now available in the Kindle Store for wireless download in less than 60 seconds.”
Gavin de Becker is the founder of a 200-person firm that provides consultation, protective services and assessment services to many of the world’s most prominent figures in media politics and culture, as well as advising government agencies, major corporations and universities. De Becker designed the MOSAIC systems used to screen threats to justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, CIA officials, members of Congress and the governors of 12 states A frequent guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Larry King Live,” and many other shows, his bestselling books on violence are published in 14 languages.
“Over the years, there have been about 25 different editions of ‘The Gift of Fear,’ and I am very excited that Kindle can free my books from the bonds of paper and glue and warehousing and shipping,” said de Becker. “These special Kindle editions of my books can efficiently and instantly be available to readers around the world, and offer many benefits unavailable in conventional paper books. For example, while readers of the physical edition may or may not have had access to a nearby dictionary, Kindle readers can now see the definition of a word at the moment it’s encountered. Now readers can also easily search for a any reference, name, passage, topic or even individual word throughout the entire text.”
The Kindle edition of “The Gift of Fear,” the New York Times bestseller about the “universal code of violence” and identifying and protecting oneself against potential attackers, contains a new foreword from the author. The Kindle edition of “Just 2 Seconds,” considered the most complete and definitive resource on preventing assassination, has new and updated content.
Very interesting mix of authors that Amazon has amassed; I wonder who they will sign next?