Amazon said to play hardball in book contract talks with publishing house Hachette

On Thursday, the new bestseller list arrived at the offices of Hachette Book Group with good news: One of the publisher's books, T.D. Jakes's "Instinct," had vaulted to the No. 1 spot. But the bad news was that anyone trying to order the book on Amazon.com on Friday got a message saying that it "usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks," far slower than the fast delivery on which Amazon prides itself.