The publisher's contribution is invisible, but awesome. Trust me, the books wouldn't be the same without them.<p>Amazon's visible contribution is ... well, there's something rather nasty happening behind the stage curtain.<p>Agreed, the mass market channel for paperback distribution must die -- everyone in publishing agrees on this (the 50% wastage is grotesque) ... just not until there's a replacement way for injecting cheap books into readers' eyeballs.