I do a lot of work for authors so I tend to keep up with the publishing industry.  When I heard that Amazon had taken down all of Macmillan's books from their store, of course my first thought was for my friends and clients whose books are no longer being sold by the largest online book retailer on the planet.  What did these authors do to deserve this?  As it turns out, they're just bystanders as these two giants spray machine-gun fire around the room.  Here's what's going on, and a protest by way of pointless gesture.

As most of you have no doubt already heard, Apple has announced the iPad.  It's an iPhone with a giant 1024x768 touch screen, which to me doesn't sound all that appealing.  What's it for?  Then this business with Amazon goes down, and suddenly it hits me: this fight isn't about Macmillan at all, it's about the Kindle vs. the iPad.  

The Apple bookstore will allow authors and publishers to sell their eBooks directly to readers and take a cut of 30%.  This is a much smaller percentage than Amazon takes, which I've heard is somewhere around 70%.  According to this article by John Scalzi, normally publishers sell to wholesalers who sell to retailers who sell to readers.  Amazon's big breakthrough was in becoming both the wholesaler and the retailer, cutting out the middle man and passing the savings on to their customers after a hefty cut.  Apple wants to turn this around, allowing publishers to be the wholesalers, and set their own prices to boot.

Amazon wants to sell Kindles.  Apple wants to sell iPads.  Macmillan wants to sell books.  Authors want to sell books.  Readers want to buy books.  Clearly, this fight is only hurting the latter three, and if it comes down to a fight between Apple and Amazon's business models, I'll take Apples, worms and all.  It's the only one that helps any of the latter three, while Amazon's business plan is to screw everyone else.

So what can you, readers and authors, do?  Well, not much.  But if it's pointless gestures you're looking for, try adding one of these to your web page, linking to your favorite Macmillan Author on Powells.com: