[cstross]

This isn't the first time this has happened. They whacked on Hachette a couple of years ago in the UK (delisting titles on amazon.co.uk) -- I'm told that what made Amazon back down was Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series of all things. (The TV series was running, all the books were in the top 30 bestsellers, and it wound up costing Amazon a fortune.)

They've also done this to Macmillan and Penguin, to my knowledge.

It's worth noting that the Big Five publishers in the US have a combined turnover about a fifth of Amazon's, and individually none of them are even 10% of Amazon's size. Amazon's behavior towards its suppliers is basically bullying -- this isn't just in publishing -- and they're also tax dodgers (although I note the UK treasury has finally taken steps to close the VAT loophole they were exploiting to charge their suppliers 20% VAT while paying out only 3% to the Luxembourg government).