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Just saw this story in Publisher’s Weekly daily email: Amazon Publishing Launches Christian Imprint. According to the story, they will publish both fiction and non-fiction under the “Waterfall Press” imprint. It sounds like some of their publishing will be in collaboration with Christianity Today. This, and the selection of Tammy Faxel, who has been associated with Tyndale House and Oasis Audio, to give editorial oversight suggest an evangelical editorial bent for this imprint.

A thought and a couple questions:

The thought: creating this imprint marks a recognition by the behemoth of Amazon that evangelical publishing is a significant market segment. Joining forces with Christianity Today gives them instant “street cred” in a broad segment of the evangelical community.

One question: what will this mean for other evangelical publishers, particular those not backed by larger corporate resources (as is the case for example of Zondervan with Harper)?

The other question: given Amazon’s financial heft, what will be the long-term editorial shape and theological bent of this imprint?

What do others think about Amazon’s movement into this new venture in the world of Christian publishing?

I have been using GoodReads for about two years as a way to post reviews of books as well as learn of good books others are reading. It serves as a kind of Facebook for book lovers. It provides recommendations of books you might enjoy based on books you have read. And it connects your posts easily to Facebook and other social media sites. There are some things I wish this site would improve, now that it is funded by the behemoth of Amazon (perhaps another post on this sometime!).

1. It would be great if the text entry box for reviews would provide the same features WordPress offers its bloggers, including easy integration of links and the ability to tag posts.

2. I wish there were a limit on the “wants to read” posts from one person at one time–perhaps three to five–so that one’s whole newsfeed isn’t filled with one person’s posts.

3. The search function to add titles to you “reading” list often seems not to turn up the book you want even if you’ve entered the title exactly, in my experience. Sometimes, the only way to get this is via entering ISBNs.

4. Currently only GoodReads authors have their blogs automatically posted to GoodReads. It would be nice if those of us who blog on books might also have this ability without pasting in links.

5. It would be helpful if GoodReads suggested categories for books based on publisher and cataloguing data. I might still like to add my own categories but this might make for more systematic sorting and searching of reviews.

Finally, I don’t want my reviews posted to Amazon without my permission. While I do want to see people read, I don’t want to be an Amazon sales person. For those of you who use GoodReads, what would make it better for you?