A Commonplace Book

Amazon has shown a peculiar genius when it comes to squeezing more dollars out of publishers, including university presses and indies that can ill afford to shave their margins any further. The company's initial foray into shaking down these vulnerable parties was called the Gazelle Project, because Bezos had suggested that "Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle." The legal team quickly rechristened it the Small Publisher Negotiation Program. (A similar program in Europe went from Pay to Play to the more sanitized Vendor Realignment.)