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Actually, Amazon's Q3 earnings were in the plus range. Apparently the departments that sell the Kindle devices (electronics) and the ebooks (included in with regular books) both increased sales and profits. It's not a substitute for hard numbers, but it is reasonable to assume that they aren't losing money hand over fist on the Kindle.
You also have to keep in mind that some paper bestsellers are also loss-leaders, and that Amazon does make a big chunk of sales on "The Long Tail" (all the less popular books that you usually can't get at your local book shop). Plus Amazon eats the cost on a lot of shipping, either via Prime or to encourage you to buy More Stuff with each order. So although it's extremely difficult to know for certain, the situation probably isn't nearly as different from their paper business we might think.
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