&gt; Publishers said the current pricing model involves some sacrifice but they felt it was worth it to keep Amazon in check.<p>&gt; Before 2010, book publishers operated with a “wholesale” model for e-books in which they sold titles to retailers, which could discount as they saw fit. Amazon was willing to buy a title for $14.99 and sell it for $9.99, taking a loss to grab market share and encourage adoption of its Kindle e-reader.<p>&gt; Publishers worried that such discounting kept Apple Inc. and Google Inc. from emerging as competitors, as those companies might not want to lose money on e-books.<p>Seems reasonable to me.