Asking whether Amazon is friend or foe is a simple question that is complicated to answer - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files

Although just about every publisher has headaches dealing with Amazon, very few could deny that Amazon is their most profitable account, if they take sales volume, returns, and the cost of servicing into consideration. This fact is almost never acknowledged and therefore qualifies as one of the industr's dirty little secrets. Because they've consolidated the book-buying audience online and deliver to it with extraordinary efficiency, Amazon must feel totally justified in clawing back margin; it wasn't their idea to be every publisher's most profitable account! But since they are effectively replacing so many other robust accounts, the profitability they add comes at a big price in the stability and reliability of a publisher's business, which feels much more comfortable coming from a spread of accounts. Publishers strongly resist Amazon's demands for more margin, partly because they don't know where they'll stop.