It seems like everyone wants a piece of Amazon. Or at least to blame Amazon for their writerly woes. The Interweb is full of articles bemoaning Amazon’s Kindle author pay policy, customer review policy, and more.

Here’s just a few articles I came across recently:

The Authors Guild is urging the Department of Justice to investigate Amazon for what it calls “anti-competitive behavior” in book sales.

Bestselling authors make roundabout arguments that it’s in readers’ interest for big publishers to collude on high prices.

Amazon recently debuted Amazon Follow, a special tab on its Amazon author pages that allow you to follow news and publications as they happen by your favorite author, including instant notifications when new books drop.

Amazon’s also come under fire recently for its customer review policy, in which it prevents friends from leaving comments about friends’ books on the site. Blogger Rachelle Gardner points out Amazon’s Customer Review Guidelines outline a number of things that are not allowed. They specifically disallow reviews “by or on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product.” Here are a couple of older articles about it: Forbes and New York Times.

Do Kindle countdown deals work? Here’s one take.

Speaking of Kindle and ebooks, did you know Amazon could wipe your slate of ebook purchases clean? Apparently,  it’s happened and it’s all in the fine print of the company’s terms and conditions. Just one more reason why print beats digital!

And in case you missed it elsewhere on my site, here’s my take on Amazon’s pay per page plan.

All of this wouldn’t be in the news if it weren’t for the fact that Amazon is a force to be reckoned with in the book publishing world. Simply put, Amazon has changed the game and the traditional publishers, as well as brick and mortar stores, are quaking in the wake of this marketing juggernaut.

So, what’s your take on Amazon? Love ’em or hate ’em? Leave your comments below.