Be the Monkey - Ebooks and Self-Publishing: A Dialog Between Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath

big books under contract for the newly formed Amazon Publishing. However, getting those big books depended on Amazon’s being able to secure distribution for their books outside Amazon. The enticement of advances and special marketing through the dominant online bookseller wouldn’t attract really successful authors if their books wouldn’t be in stor

Second, Amazon used its clout with publishers (and its own ability to finance conversions) to produce a huge increase in available titles, and particularly desirable titles. Amazon persuaded many publishers to make e-books available when the printed book first came out at a time when publishers were experimenting with and inclined to a “windowing”

It was as if you could buy only the books that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, but the list was operated by an untrustworthy company, one solely devoted to treating books as fungible objects to be offloaded as quickly as possible.