How Did Amazon End Up as Literary Enemy No. 1?

If the Kindle didn’t have any books on it, guess how many Kindles would be selling? None. They want the books, and they want the publishers’ profits, too? They should get nothing. Zero.

— Andrew Wylie, vanityfair.com

kindle Amazon Digital Books Book Publishing

If Amazon succeeds, they will lower the retail price—$9.99, $6.99, $3.99, $1.99. And instead of making $4 on your hardcover, you’ll be making 10 cents a copy on all editions. And you will not be able to afford to write a book. No one, unless they have inherited $50 million, will be able to afford to…

— Andrew Wylie, vanityfair.com

Amazon Investment in Literature Book Publishing Patrons

The Amazon-Hachette dispute mirrors the wider culture wars that have been playing out in America since at least the 1960s. On the one side, super-wealthy elites employing populist rhetoric and mobilizing non-elites; on the other side, slightly less wealthy elites struggling to explain why their way…

— Keith Gessen, vanityfair.com

Culture Wars Cultural Elitism vs. Democratic Consumerism Populism

If a big Barnes & Noble had 150,000 books in stock, Amazon had a million! And if Barnes & Noble had taken its books to lonely highways where previously there had been no bookstores, Amazon was taking books to places where there weren’t even highways. As long as you had a credit card, and the postal…

— Keith Gessen, vanityfair.com

Book Publishing Cultural Elitism vs. Democratic Consumerism Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble’s lone literary-fiction buyer, Sessalee Hensley, could make (or break) a book with a large order (or a disappointingly small one). If you talked to a publisher in the early 2000s, chances are they would complain to you about the tyranny of Sessalee. No one used her last name; the most…

— Keith Gessen, vanityfair.com

Book Publishing Amazon Books Book Publishing Monopoly

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