Amazon is not just a river. Neither is denial.

From: Wikia Brazil

"The news that Amazon is preparing to release more than 100 books this fall was predictably greeted in doomsday tones. 'Amazon.com has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers,' lamented the Times. The mood was summed up by Richard Curtis, an agent and e-book publisher who was one of the few publishing professionals willing to speak on the record. 'Everyone’s afraid of Amazon,' he said. 'If you’re a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you’re an agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.' The trouble isn’t just that Amazon is stealing some money-making authors. It’s that 'the company is gnawing away at the services that publishers, critics and agents used to provide.'
     Note the past tense. If traditional book publishing is failing to provide services that once were standard, someone will inevitably step in to fill the vacuum. There are three major steps in publishing and selling a book, and in each of them Amazon is offering a service that has been neglected by the mainstream: [...]"
— Ruth Franklin, The New Republic
Read more...