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Kali, in my view you're still not appreciating the power Amazon has to negotiate.
An eBook is like a download record album. eMusic sells download jazz music for (last I heard) 40 songs for $14.99. Amazon can easily obtain a deal with the publishers that the wholesale price for the "introductory books" will be closer to $1. It's all profit for the publisher.
An article about the Kindle in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago showed, and this was verified to me by a couple of Kindle-owning friends, that Amazon typically discounts its eBooks only 10-20% off the pbook price. The $9.99 figure is only for the New York Times best sellers, and is not typical. (If you don't think that the publishers would negotiate regarding a best seller, fine. Amazon can exclude them from the introductory offer.)
So if Amazon obtains a $1 wholesale price for those "introductory books" and "sells" them for $20 each, the customer would receive 15 "introductory books". And as Griffinwing says, the offer can be limited, let's say to a year.
It is in the publishers' interest for the public to take to eBooks because the cost to the publisher is so close to zero. It is also in their interest to increase the number of book readers. I believe that new Kindle customers are likely to download books they would not otherwise buy.
So this is basically giving out free samples of a new product, an old marketing concept. Amazon is moving its Kindles, and the publishers are giving out extra copies of eBooks that cost them nothing to produce. Win-Win.
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