After Vanquishing Ebook Rivals, Amazon Now Makes Peace With Publishers

Now that Amazon AMZN has swept away its competition in the $3 billion U.S. e-book business through years of aggressive discounting, it's starting to make peace with publishers, which should mean more profits at the world's largest bookseller.

In recent months, Amazon has signed new contracts with three of the world's five largest publishers: Legardere's Hachette, CBS Simon & Schuster and most recently, Macmillan. Those contracts return much of the pricing control of e-books back to the publishers. Not long ago, Amazon fought hard for