Amazon Launches Author Blogs

Amazon.com on Wednesday rolled out a new feature for book authors called "Amazon Connect," which enables authors to post blog entries that appear on book detail pages, customer accounts and author profile pages. Amazon users can then reply to the postings, and sign up to receive updates.

"We invite authors to communicate with their readers in a way that hasn't before been possible," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. "Amazon Connect brings the author's message to the reader instead of waiting for the reader to find the message."