So what’s causing this, exactly—this inchoate dread that’s suddenly turned “choate,” as one insider puts it? The anxiety would be endurable if it was just a function of the late-Bush economy: Sales at the five big publishers were up 0.5 percent in the first half of this year, bookstore sales tanked in June, and a full-year decline is expected. But pretty much every aspect of the business seems to be in turmoil. There’s the floundering of the few remaining semi-independent midsize publishers; the ouster of two powerful CEOs—one who inspired editors and one who at least let them be; the desperate race to evolve into e-book producers; the dire state of Borders, the only real competitor to Barnes & Noble; the feeling that outrageous money is being wasted on mediocre books; and Amazon.com, which many publishers look upon as a power-hungry monster bent on cornering the whole business.

In New York Magazine Boris Kachka writes of the end of publishing as we know it.

Forbes notes that Amazon is acquiring AbeBooks.

Amazon, the online retailing giant with a fast-rising share of the consumer book market, has adopted the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands.

In the New York Times, Doreen Carvajal covers the company’s growing market presence and leverage.

The American Booksellers Association notes Amazon’s plan to fight a New York proposal that the online retailer collect and remit sales tax for sales to in-state customers.

Mark Pilgrim’s assessment of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, formed through the juxtaposition of quotations, agrees with my own.

Steven Johnson examines Amazon’s text statistics.

. . .the two stats that I found totally fascinating were “Average Words Per Sentence” and “% Complex Words,” the latter defined as words with three or more syllables–words like “ameliorate”, “protoplasm” or “motherf***er.”

The author of a self-published British children’s book wants the title to be removed from the Amazon UK catalog. The Guardian article says that he feels that:

“When a book gets a certain amount of attention, they will attempt to stock it and cut the independents out. Not with my book!”