Amazon's $9.99 e-book price point may be a rarity as more book publishers declare that they'll set their own prices for books, with the seller taking a standard 30 percent cut. Another major publisher has decided to move to what's referred to as the "agency model" while others are hinting that they, too, are about to force the new model on Amazon.

Hachette has become the latest publisher to announce that it was done with what it calls the artificially depressed e-book prices imposed by Amazon. In an e-mail to its employees, CEO David Young extolled the virtues of the agency model, noting that it "allows Hachette to make pricing decisions that are rational and reflect the value of our authors' works," according to an excerpt posted by Media Bistro. "Without this investment in our authors, the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer."