8 May 2017
Amazon has long ceased to simply be "Earth's Biggest Bookstore," which was how it described itself back when it launched in 1994. It's now the Everything Store, a place where you can buy underwear and bananas. It is the largest e-retailer in the world, accounting for more than half of all e-commerce growth in 2016. But that does not mean that books have ceased to be important to Amazon-and it certainly does not mean that Amazon, which dominates the book industry in the United States, has ceased to be important to publishers. That's why a recent tweak in the way Amazon sells books has publishers and authors very worried.