T his weekend, Amazon more or less "de-friended" Macmillan, one of the six big US publishers. They removed the buy buttons from all Macmillan books as part of an ongoing conflict about electronic book pricing. Many people are quite annoyed with Amazon, and a few are also blaming Macmillan, in a "pox on both your houses" kind of way. A lot of people are uttering total yackum on the subject. This is my attempt to set the record straight, as best I know how. Stage 1: Amazon prices all its Kindle e-books at $9.99 or less. This becomes a selling point for Kindle, as new hardback books can cost up to $27. In some cases, Amazon is actually paying the publisher more than $9.99 per copy sold, and losing money. But Amazon has stacks of cash, and it's a way to sell more Kindles and gain market share. Verdict: "Loss-leading," as it's called, is a fairly common practice. But indie bookstores will never be able to match these prices. This is not going to be great for my bookseller allies in the physical world.