(An Apple executive explained that keeping iBooks out of iOS meant the software team could do more frequent updates than otherwise. He added that they were excited to have iBooks finally be a “first-party app.”)

Inside and outside of publishing, people disagree about how the business will shake out. “Book publishers had the longest time horizon to prepare for the digital transition,” the industry lawyer told me, “and they were the least prepared.” From Amazon’s perspective, demographics is destiny: people who read print are dying, while digital natives are being born. But in fact e-book adoption has been slower among young readers than among adults, and the growth in e-book sales overall has slowed considerably. And it is possible that Wylie was right, that the publishers were finally standing up for themselves. A less optimistic industry analyst wasn’t so sure. “The publishers are going to say, ‘Beyond this line we shall not cross,’ ” the analyst argued. “Then a year later they’ll say, ‘Actually, beyond this line we shall not cross.’ The question for publishers is ‘How long can we say yes and still have a business?’ ” In late October, Simon & Schuster announced that it had signed a multi-year agreement with Amazon. It was too early to tell whether this meant that Amazon had become more accommodating, or that Simon & Schuster had gained real ground, or that the publisher had accepted terms that it might later come to regret.

Everyone is waiting to find out what happens with the recent merger of Random House and Penguin into one giant publisher, Penguin Random House. The merger might create a house strong enough to battle Amazon. It also provides one response to the government’s anti-trust case, some feel: Penguin and Random House cannot be accused of colluding, since they are the same company. This new company is not just bigger than each of the other four publishers that with it make up the Big Five; it’s almost as big as the other four combined. What this new giant decides to do with its market power is so far anyone’s guess. It’s also anyone’s guess as to how writers and agents in recent months have been assessing their options about which publishers to approach. No one wants to speak on the record when this subject comes up. “This can’t go on forever, everyone says,” one prominent agent (who isn’t mine) told me. “But part of the reason for that is because Hachette can’t weather it forever! And what kind of shape will they be in if they lose this battle and have to accept terms they’ve been saying for over six months they just can’t accept?”

Authors United has announced that one of its members, Barry Lynn, author of Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, was putting together a letter to try to persuade the Justice Department that Amazon is violating anti-trust laws by, among other things, delaying the shipment of Hachette books. It could be that there has been enough public outcry about Amazon’s tactics that efforts of this kind will get some traction. Possibly. Maybe.

I spoke about this with Steve Berman, the class-action lawyer in Seattle. “I’d love to sue Amazon. It’s the only big company I haven’t sued,” he said. “But you need a Microsoft moment: ‘We need to cut off Netscape’s air supply.’ ” He was referring to the famous and only somewhat successful federal anti-trust lawsuit brought against Microsoft, in 1998, which focused in part on a Microsoft executive’s alleged remark about what the company would like to do to its competition. Berman wasn’t optimistic.

He took me over to his window, which looked out over Seattle’s downtown. Due largely to Amazon’s expansion, Seattle is one of the fastest-growing cities in America. The size of the self-publishing program alone within Amazon is already so large that, because the company does not reveal any sales figures about self-publishing, some believe that statistics about book publishing in general can no longer be trusted. Some huge and growing part of the market is simply unaccounted for. Berman pointed at the dozens of yellow and red construction cranes that rose in spikes above Seattle all the way to the water. He made sure I was looking and said, “That’s all Amazon.”