• On former White House spokesmonkey Scott McClellan's new book, which won't be back in physical stock until June 9 but is still available on the Kindle for $9.99: "One of the great things about electronic books — they don't go out of stock."
• Regarding reading on a laptop, Bezos asserted, "You certainly can't curl up in bed with one." Actually, our laptop has been our most faithful sleeping partner in years.
• Playing up the Kindle's ability to look up definitions on the fly. "I have discovered my vocabulary is not nearly as good as I thought it was ... I was living in a nice fantasy world where my contextual guesses were accurate."
• Of the 125,000 titles available as both physical books and Kindle e-books, six percent of the sales go to Kindle. Some, including Bezos, buy both a physical copy and an electronic copy — presumably because a Kindle full of books doesn't telegraph just how smart you are.
• Anderson asked by what factor the number of titles available on Kindle would grow by next year in Bezos estimation. "I wouldn't be happy with 20 million. I'm hard to make happy. Bwahahahaha!" (Bezos' laugh is surprisingly deep and loud for such a small man).
• Like Amazon's offering of used copies alongside new copies, it didn't change the amount of original sales, only expanded, suggesting it's not a zero-sum game. "Most people bought as many books as they previously bought, and plus they buy Kindle books."
• Explaining Amazon's strategy of only offering print-on-demand titles printed through BookSurge in its shipping discounts, he said it's because it's cheaper to pack multiple purchases in one box — hence POD books must be printed at Amazon fulfillment centers to qualify.
• Early in the discussion with Bezos, Anderson kept turning the conversation towards his"long tail" theory. Eventually, Bezos caught on, expounding on how Amazon's whole business model was based on niche content availability being a differentiator — shrewdly buttering up Anderson while subtly claiming credit for the idea.

Because Amazon already does much to determine what books sell, and how much they sell for, which directly impacts the trade in ideas between readers and writers, not to mention the bottom lines of publishers and the ability for authors to pay rent. In a world where Amazon controls distribution of physical books from small publishers through POD publishing, sales and distribution, as well as electronic distribution through the Kindle reader, the company can effectively shut uncooperative publishers and their ideas out of the business.

The suit itself [PDF] has only just been submitted, and a district court judge will have to judge the case on its merits as well as certify as a class action if other POD publishers, such as LightningSource and Lulu, come forward as fellow plaintiffs in the case. Amazon could relent on some of the more obnoxious terms of their own volition, however, and nip this dispute in the bud if it so chose — which just goes to show how much power Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has over the future of publishing.