The Digital Reader

From the press release:

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that Gavin de Becker, bestselling author and nationally recognized expert on the prediction and management of violence, has decided to make expanded and updated editions of two of his books, “The Gift of Fear” and “Just 2 Seconds,” available in Amazon’s Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). This is the first time “The Gift of Fear” has been available electronically, and both books will be exclusive to the Kindle Store for one year. Kindle is the most gifted, most wished for and the No. 1 bestselling product across all categories on Amazon.com. The Kindle Store now includes over 410,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases.

I used to regard this kind of announcement as an ad for Amazon, but that was before I realized that no one else was doing this. Amazon is signing authors to exclusive deals the way a chain store might pursue being the exclusive retailer for a nifty gadget. Why is it that only Amazon thought to do this? Is everyone else asleep at the wheel?