According to The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other outlets, Amazon over the weekend stopped selling books from publishing giant Macmillan. Amazon had sought to price new titles at $9.99, but Macmillan insisted on selling e-books for the Kindle for as much as $14.99. (Oddly enough, under Macmillan's plan, Amazon makes more for each e-book sold.)

Sunday, though, Amazon said that, even though Macmillan has a "monopoly" on its titles, the retailer would sell the e-books at the higher prices, saying it wants to offer them to Kindle owners.

Apple last week reached a deal with publishers to sell e-books for the iPad at publishers' desired $12.99 to $14.99 prices.

"The balance of power shifted slightly away from Amazon to the publisher," Benchmark analyst Fred Moran told Bloomberg News. "If Amazon can't price its e-books where it wants, it means that competition from emerging e-readers like the Apple tablet will have a better chance of stealing market share from Amazon."

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