Indies Need to Push Back More on Amazon

Amazon — the king of e-books and deep discounts — has offered an olive branch of sorts to indie bookstores via its new Source program. It works like this: If stores agree to sell Kindles, Amazon will offer them a 10% commission on every e-book a customer purchases on a device bought at the store for the next two years. It’s a tempting deal for indies, for sure, but it’s far from ideal. The biggest problem is the two-year commission window. That’s too short. It should last as long as the device does.