More on Amazon.com

From today’s PW Daily:
The program, called Amazon shorts and first revealed by PW Daily in early April, allows customers to buy the new work for 49 cents in digital form from a store at Amazon.com/shorts and elsewhere on the site, and then get the work in a number of digital forms (as well as print it out).

Amazon has been working on the program for more than a year, and its representatives were making the rounds to agents over the winter to sign up authors. Judging by who they've landed, there is quite a bit of interest. The alphabetic listing starts with Kevin Anderson and ends with Stuart Woods. In between? Ann Beattie, Terry Brooks, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Rhodes, Danielle Steel and Gloria Vanderbilt. The house was said to aim for 250 authors when it approached agents; it's not known if it will add more.

I am trying to figure out the point of this program. Perhaps to push demand for books? It doesn’t seem like it will be a huge revenue booster at 49 cents. I wonder the payment deal with the authors. Did they get a flat fee? Were they paid?