[wozniacki]

  There are plenty of authors that the publisher 
  will deny the opportunity to even put a book 
  on the shelf.

I strongly second this. Precisely this. In as many words.

It's dumbfounding how artists, authors and advocates who claim to support those lowly artists and authors make such self-serving cases against the likes of Amazon, when it does not suit their mores.

What about the democratization of publishing? What about the ability of anyone outside the inner circles of literary royalty, to actually see their work in print? These very same advocates, could not care less.

This is also the reason that newspapers, tabloids and general interest magazines everywhere and the writers who write for them despise what Google has done to their curating (read: gate-keeping) potential.

Their power to singularly table the issues and frame the conversations around those issues has dwindled. And they loathe that with a fervor.

Make no mistake. Artists and authors who demand things to be done on their terms are, first and foremost are unbearable egotists. They want to control the narrative, the medium and the delivery. They want to be power-brokers of their craft. Anyone familiar with the publishing houses will tell you this.

( On a slight tangent, read up on the Frank Gehry - Eli Broad fiasco to learn how difficult even architects are to work with. ) [1]

The outrage in most of these cases is not that some behemoth has unfairly moved the goal posts. Its that the changing landscape is allowing for a larger pool of players to release their works and thereby introducing competition. Hence the playing field is no longer tilted in the favor of these storied publishers and their authors.

That's the gripe here. As in most such cases.

[1] Why and how Eli Broad is giving billions away http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-and-how-eli-broad-is-giving-...

[wiredfool]

A publisher has a certain amount of bandwidth. They can manage to acquire, edit, copyedit, promote, ship, etc a certain number of books and authors per year, per editor. They acquire books that fit with the marketing direction of their imprint. There's a lot of good stuff coming out. But good stuff takes curation and nurturing to get over the hump of good enough to Really Damn Good. Amazon is not going to do that.

Editing is important. Filters are a damn useful invention. I could be talking about websites, music, or books.