It's probably old news by now; because either Amazon or Hachette Publishing want a 'better deal' from the other, Amazon has somehow shorted sales of Hachette Publishing's books---a bad deal for the authors whom Hachette publishes. Those authors are part of a group of about 900 big-name authors who have started to battle Amazon's unloyal penny-pinching--Log In--a battle that Amazon believes will cost them three years' of their Internet-profits! So, what do you think they should do?
Amazon has too much control. As a customer it seems great, you can see everything at a glance, second hand and new editions, but they do control prices. I put my book on their self publishing site and the commission structures are so low. You also have to guarantee your book will not be offered anywhere else cheaper. I put my book on with Smashwords and you get 80% of the the sale, Amazon you get a sliding scale and 35% or 70% plus delivery costs in some countries. There is also a lot of small print and it depends on how much you charge for the book too. The case is to stop Amazon having a monopoly on e-book pricing which it has for a long time.
