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Their big worry: Amazon will end up with the same kind of pricing power in books that Apple has in music, and that the book industry will suffer the same kind of bruising decline.
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The good news: Books, unlike songs, are wanted as complete objects; people don't want to download "chapters 3 & 7 only." A lot of what's killing the music industry is single-track instead of album sales.
The bad news: It's coming anyway. Remove the costs of print & distribution, and the public is not willing to pay as much for the product. Publishers who've been using those to mask their profit-gouging are going to find a disillusioned marketplace that's perfectly willing to shift to their competitors or bootlegs rather than pay what they think are excessive prices.