Amazon Pulls Thousands of E-Books in Dispute


Amazon.com removed more than 4,000 e-books from its site this week after it tried and failed to get them more cheaply, a muscle-flexing move that is likely to have significant repercussions for the digital book market.
Amazon is under pressure from Wall Street to improve its anemic margins. At the same time, it is committed to selling e-books as cheaply as possible as a way to preserve the dominance of its Kindle devices.
When the Kindle contract for one of the country?s largest book distributors, the Independent Publishers Group, came up for renewal, Amazon saw a chance to gain some ground at I.P.G.?s expense.
?They decided they wanted me to change my terms,? said Mark Suchomel, president of the Chicago-based I.P.G. ?It wasn?t reasonable. There?s only so far we can go.?
With each side unwilling to yield, Amazon pulled the plug, and all of I.P.G.?s books for Kindle disappeared. The physical books were not affected. A spokeswoman for Amazon declined to comment.
The dispute quickly reignited fears in some corners about the power Amazon enjoys as the shift to e-books accelerates. Amazon is dominant in both the physical and electronic markets for books.
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