Why? Part of the answer came in the form of two articles about delayed ebooks as publishers begin to fight a format war. An independent publisher, Sourcebooks, announced it would put off the ebook of one of its lead fiction titles for half a year. The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg and Geoffrey Fowler quoted Robert Gottlieb, agent to a number of best-selling serial fiction writers, saying he doesn't allow simultaneous publication when he can prevent it, because it would be like launching a movie simultaneously in theaters and on DVD.

A few days later, Motoko Rich put more chips on the table when she wrote a story outlining publishers' doubts about when to schedule Kindle editions of fall's tent pole fiction titles, most dramatically Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, but also new books by Stephen King and John Grisham.

What's going on here? Publishers are literally fighting for their lives—or, at least, their livelihoods—and they're refusing to offer editions that would generate the same revenue and royalties as hardcovers—not to mention more profit—because they're worried about the price Amazon sells the Kindle edition for. Never mind that Amazon is simply using its deep pockets to subsidize loss-leading titles for its Kindle customers who paid full-boat price for the device.

Let's go back to Gottlieb's DVD comparison. Most movies do a significant amount of business on the opening weekend. Movie studios produce those opening weekend box-office numbers through expensive marketing campaigns. In return, theater chains give almost all of the ticket receipts back to the studios in compensation. The theaters keep the concession take for themselves. Why do the theaters agree to this? Because they want the hit movies that will put bodies—with hungry mouths—in seats. The studios set the prices for the movies, the theaters worry about the prices for the Snow Caps.

The book business is a hit business just like Hollywood. Hits have pricing power, though the book business is one of the few places where the hits are discounted by retailers and the slow-sellers offer no incentive to buyers—the opposite of common sense.

Publishers aren't stupid. So there's something else going on here. And it's hard to get to the bottom of it because publishers won't come right out and say that one of their biggest clients, Amazon, is behaving in an irrational and destabilizing way.