Owings Mills, Maryland – The hip-hop publishing house the Cartel Publications has made a gutsy move. Effective immediately, all of the publisher’s street life classics will be uploaded to Amazon’s electronic book reader, the Kindle before going into physical format. This move marks the beginning of the company’s efforts to make itself ‘Economy Friendly’. The executives said, “We are excited to see our vision to go ‘Green’ come alive!” Although the company vows to make their titles available on the Kindle first, they will continue to publish titles in print format. The goal is to divide sales equally amongst the electronic and physical formats. The company does not plan to make consumers who prefer physical books wait more than a month after titles are introduced via the Kindle. The company believes this will provide more street fiction titles to consumers who do not have access to their favorite novels using conventional means. The backlist has also been made available on Amazon’s Kindle and sells are growing rapidly.
Cartel Publications was established on January 1, 2008. To date the hip-hop publishing house has gained a major presence within the Street Literature industry. Headed by Essence Magazine Bestselling author T. Styles and Charisse Washington, the duo has published ten novels to date on their label. Several of their novels have made bestseller’s lists and they predict this number will climb. The company plans to have a total of 14 novels published by the end of 2009.
