Crain’s New York Business reports that Amazon recently hosted a group of literary agents to explain how the online behemoth doesn’t plan to destroy the publishing world.

According to one participant, the aim of the meetings, which culminated in a dinner Thursday evening, was for Amazon to “explain itself” to the agent community, whose members fear that e-books could undermine the book-publishing business much the way that digital file-sharing and iTunes upended the music industry.

(Editor’s note: I don’t believe that iTunes is responsible for the decline of the music industry. The $50+ iTunes charge on my credit card bill this past month proves that my kids are purchasing music at a faster rate than I did at a similar age. Now, it’s fine with me if you want to blame music business woes on file-sharing…)