Can Amazon.com do for electronic books what Apple did for digital music, establishing broad control over distribution and pricing? Fast Company asks that question in its July cover story. It's an interesting read, looking at how Amazon has watched and learned from Apple's experience with the iPod and iPhone. The piece also explores how -- now that Amazon has laid the groundwork for e-books -- Apple could wrest control of that market.

The magazine says Amazon's move to price digital versions of best-selling books and new releases at $9.99 mirrors Apple's early decision to set a 99-cent-per-song rule:

Amazon is creating a sticky price in consumers' minds and redefining the cost of a "book" just as Apple did with music. In fact, on Amazon there is a protest movement afoot as more than a thousand users tag for boycott any Kindle book listing for more than $9.99. If book buyers join forces with Amazon on price, publishers would inevitably lose.

Once Amazon establishes a lock on pricing, "Bezos could head back to the negotiating table to wring even more concessions" from publishers, the story argues.

But the magazine also focuses on how Apple, with its rumored touch-screen tablet, could upset Amazon's plans:

After Amazon went through the trouble and expense of seeding the landscape, implanting the concept of the e-book in people's minds, creating a market where there wasn't one before, and moving to control the distribution system, Apple could muscle its way in with a full-color multitouch-screen media tablet that not only reads books but also offers video, music, Web surfing, email, and the combined power of the iTunes and Apple App Store.

It will be fascinating to see these two tech titans continue to circle each other.

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