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I wonder if they set the percentage so high because the average price of the self published books is rather low. They do have some expenses in storage, support, bandwidth (both Whispernet and Internet). On a $0.99 book, they're making $0.65 for their trouble. That's not much. It does get pretty egregious at the higher price points, though. Maybe they should do a minimum flat fee, possibly adjusted for size, and a smaller percentage in addition if the book was above a break-even-plus-ok-profit price. I don't think the inexpensive self-published books are a place to try to maximize profit. They're a nice way to increase your catalog, build community, and give bargains to customers. If something starts selling well, they could always encourage the author to raise the price and they could promote it more. That's a win-win.
It's more than my natural sympathy for authors that prompts me to say this. Amazon seems to be interested in becoming a publisher. It can't compete with print yet. This could be a good play towards growth. It could start building a catalog by looking for authors bubbling to the top and promoting them not only with ebooks but with print. That's still the major force for now and Amazon has the facility to bring print and digital to the market now. Just my $0.02.
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