Join us for a live chat Wednesday, April 4, from 1 to 2 p.m. with Seattle Times reporter Amy Martinez, books editor Mary Ann Gwinn and novelist Richard Russo for a discussion about Amazon.com's relationships in the book-publishing industry.

Also joining us is bestselling author Barry Eisler, who won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year. Eisler says Amazon is "trying to accelerate the transition to digital via high royalties for authors and low prices for books; legacy publishers are trying to retard that transition via low royalties for authors and high prices for books. Neither of these approaches is inherently good or evil, but one is smart and the other … less so." Eisler lives in the San Francisco area.