The massive event Amazon held Thursday to debut its new line of electronic readers and tablets included an unexpected shout out for a local start-up: The covers of three of its books flashed on the big screen behind Amazon boss Jeff Bezos as he introduced a line of serialized fiction for the Kindle.

The “stealth literary studio,” as its founders term it, is Plympton, named after a tiny side street in Harvard Square where the founders often met to discuss the future of literature and publishing.