Publishers generally sell e-books to Amazon and its competitors for the same price they sell paper books to retailers—about half the list price of the paper version. Amazon and the others insist on selling most e-books for about $9.99, which pleases the publishers when the e-book retail price is close to that of the paper edition: Currently, Amazon is selling the $14 list paperback of The Big Sleep for $10.98 and the electronic Kindle version for $9.99.