In reply to Mark Kemball:
Amazon do strange things to cut their margins and market aggressively. I get the same amount from a copy sold on Amazon as I do from a copy sold elsewhere but Amazon themselves make much less. This is their tactic to get people to use the site.
We could undercut the £17.47 and make less ourselves but then the small outdoor shops would rightly be outraged and many would probably not stock our books. You can see this across the Outdoor Trade where manufacturers like Berghaus, for example, sell their stuff at RRP from their own site getting a much better margin but not undercutting their retail outlets who are obviously vital for the brand. It simply isn't the done thing.
So if you cherish being able to buy guidebooks from your local outdoor retailer, then buy them from there and not from Amazon. If everyone tries to save a few pounds at Amazon, then that could lead to small shops cutting stock of guidebooks since they don't make much on them anyway.
And no, we can't not supply Amazon since the book trade works through huge secondary distributors who supply all sorts of places as well as Amazon (many other European outlets, many high street book shops). These big distributors would not listen to a small publisher saying don't sell to Amazon, they would simply drop the books which would cut our sales outlets in half.
Alan