The new Kindle Lending Library, which offers many best-selling books for free on loan to Amazon Prime members, has thrown a wrench into the publishing industry's status quo:
"[I]t's awful for publishers and authors," writes Joe Wikert plainly at O'Reilly Media. Why? Because a flat fee to a publisher isn't compensating authors for their individual work. He'd prefer to see a pay-for-performance model — which some publishers, or some specific books, are apparently getting.
Virginia Postrel thinks the future is in bundling:
Every book is indeed different, but that’s no excuse for charging more than the market will bear. And, at least for digital copies, there’s a way around the “every book is different” problem: bundling a lot of books together, charging a flat fee, and letting customers use whichever ones they like best.
The Dish 