Booksellers and authors are demanding that the Federal Trade Commission investigate what they purport is Amazon’s 90% dominance of all books sold online and 80% of e-books.

Further, they charge in a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan Wednesday, Amazon sells more than 50% of physical books at retail stores.

The damning 12-page letter is timely, as Amazon executives are set to meet with FTC officials ahead of planned antitrust action against it massive online control, according to Politico and Bloomberg reports. However, the scope of a potential lawsuit by the FTC or DOJ is unclear, New York Post reports.

Lawmakers have repeatedly accused Amazon of promoting its own products ahead of third-party vendors on Amazon marketplace, which the online retail colossus has denied.

In order for a bookseller or an author to get a book promoted on Amazon.com or to come up through a search, they must pay an “extortionary tax” with only the highest bidders winning, claim The America Booksellers Association, The Authors Guild and Open Markets.

The booksellers also say that Amazon unduly controls what readers can consume, undermining Americans’ First Amendment rights and running contrary to numerous Supreme Court cases, including Associated Press v. United States, which underscored in 1945 the government’s mandate to protect the freedom of speech.

“The open access to the free flow of ideas is essential to a well-functioning democracy,” the groups say, adding, “The free exchange of ideas in books is essential to a free society.

Since its inception in 1995, Amazon has exponentially expanded its control over the publishing and other industries through never-ending acquisitions and ever-expanding, powerful algorithms “to become the sole gatekeeper and eliminate all competition and increase its margins,” the booksellers say.

The FTC recently blocked Penguin Random House from acquiring Simon & Schuster for these very reasons, they remind Khan and Johnathan Kanter, assistant attorney general, Department of Justice Antitrust Division, also addressed in the letter.

“All the more concerning is how Amazon has wielded its dominant position over even the biggest of publishers to retaliate against companies that resisted its demands or even questioned its practices,” the groups charge.

The groups say that Amazon uses the same monopoly tactics that the railroads used in the 19^th century: “If you want to get your product to market, you pay the tax and play by their rules.”

As further proof of Amazon’s domination of the book-selling business, the letter notes how bookstores in the U.S. fell by half from 12,000 in 1998 to 6,000 in 2019.

Amazon did not respond to a NYP request for comment.