a whole chorus of whiners popped up after amazon's "kindle sales triple" press-release to heap their usual crap on the online giant. they accused the big seattle retailer of being "misleading", betraying their own ignorance and a lack of reading comprehension skills. as usual, these whiners want _specific_ info, on how many devices that amazon has sold, how many e-book units it has moved, etc. it's as if they think they have some kind of god-given right to riffle through amazon's books -- meaning its financial ledgers... and the teleread idiot rothman was on his usual blathering kick about pulling in some kind of federal government oversight dogs... he doesn't even realize how stupid he sounds. the funniest part of all is that some of these whiners claim amazon is "in deep trouble"... yeah, right. meanwhile, according to publishers weekly, a number of publishing houses have now all confirmed the e-book/hardcover differential:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/43926-... but that's not the biggest amazon story today. andrew wiley, who is some big "super-agent" (with clients like andrew mailer, ralph ellison, saul bellow, john updike, philip roth, etc.) has just signed with amazon to bring backlist titles to the kindle -- in an _exclusive_ arrangement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/books/22odyssey.html

the exclusivity only lasts for 2 years at present, but i suppose that it can be reconsidered then, giving everyone time to see how it shakes out. (and believe me, a _lot_ will change in 2 years.) amazon already signed unknown authors and midlist authors (like joe konrath) to deals for kindle exclusives, and now extends its range to backlist titles from quite well-known authors, including "fear and loathing in las vegas", by that famous bullet-kisser hunter s. thompson, which is the first of these e-books i will buy... and publishers who thought they had a vault full of money from their "intellectual property" now find that agents are picking their pocket, claiming that e-books were never a part of the contracts from the old days, an assertion which courts have sided with whenever it's been tested. amazon is most decidedly not in a weak position. it is _strong_, and way out in front in the quest to make e-books a solid reality in the 21st century. -bowerbird