A Little Perspective on Amazon’s Book Business

The contract battle between behemoth Amazon and Goliath Hachette has become a full-on Thing, with pundits pontificating on anti-trust, bemoaning the future of books, and even trotting out a corporate anti-bullying law from the 1930s as a remedy.

Amazon may be losing the PR battle right now (scorn Stephen Colbert and “Robert Galbraith” at your own risk), but Hachette is laying off staff and reports suggest that the standoff is damaging its business.

Boycotts may hurt Amazon, but how much? To put the stakes in perspective, we’ve visualized a worse-than-worst-case scenario for the Seattle company. What would happen to Amazon’s annual revenue if its U.S. book business disappeared entirely tomorrow?