"We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we "just talk." We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. "

And the solutions they then present are very admirable. However, it was still amazon that took the unilateral action to punish authors, and it was likely the backlash from that that motivated those three noble solutions. It's a shame amazon had to poison the well with that move, because everything else points to Hachette being dumb and making bad decsions that hurt authors.

"Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store."

Hachette stonewalled. Amazon took action. Sales of Hachettes' titles. Out store.

Clearly, the authors did not factor into these moves.

"the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that's 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger."

That's great, but it's not a justification to hurt authors. It may be more revenue and customers for amazon in the long run, but these are authors who have put their souls into their art and worked for years. Jeopardizing their release window and sales for a percentage is evil and out of touch.