A great piece in the LA Times explaining why the Amazon-Hachette dispute matters. The best quote:

"What's ultimately at stake is whether Amazon is going to be able to freely and permanently bully publishers into eventual nonexistence." -- John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars.

BTW, #10 explains why Hachette is in Amazon's crosshairs, and why the other four major publishing houses can expect the same treatment if something doesn't change.

Update: my literary agent tells me that I really need to turn on the commenting feature in my blog. I'd kept it turned off because I've had some really bad experiences with Internet trolls. But, at his behest, I'm going to give it a test run and turn on comments for a few selected blog entry just to see what happens. Please justify my tenuous faith in humanity's capacity for civility.