Prominent Editor’s Exit Is Setback for Amazon Publishing Unit

By ALEXANDRA ALTERNOV. - NYT

Ed Park has been a fixture of New York’s literary scene for 20 years. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

When Amazon hired the novelist Ed Park as a senior editor in its New York publishing office in 2011, it seemed an unlikely match. Mr. Park — a member of New York’s literary elite who had worked for the Poetry Foundation, co-founded a literary magazine and edited The Village Voice’s literary supplement — seemed ill suited to Amazon’s algorithm-driven business.

The incongruity was precisely the point. By hiring Mr. Park and later giving him his own imprint, called Little A, Amazon signaled that it was willing to take risks on works with more aesthetic than commercial value. Mr. Park brought a patina of prestige to the company’s fledgling publishing program, and he leaned on his literary credentials to attract authors to the new imprint. In the last three years, Mr. Park has published some 20 books and recently landed Amazon a major literary prize.

But now, in the latest setback for Amazon’s publishing aspirations, Mr. Park is leaving the imprint to join Penguin Press as an executive editor. His departure reflects the challenges that Amazon faces in a publishing ecosystem that largely views the online retailer as a rapacious competitor. Most bookstores — having been undercut by the giant retailer — refuse to carry books published by Amazon, a major hurdle as the company courts authors and agents.

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