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Amazon capitulates further on e-book pricing

by Scott Bicheno on 1 April 2010, 14:21

Tags: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)

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Facing the inevitable

E-tail giant Amazon, which also makes the Kindle e-reader, has renegotiated two more deals with book publishers to echo the ‘agency pricing' deal Apple has been offering publishers for its iPad, according to the WSJ.

When first confronted with this shifting of the goalposts brought about by the iPad - which will go on sale this weekend - Amazon responded petulantly. Confronted by a demand from Macmillan to shift to the agency model - where the publisher rather than the retailer gets to set the price - Amazon temporarily delisted Macmillan books from its site.

"We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books," said Amazon in a blog post at the time.

With the iPad about to launch, this capitulation has gathered pace, and now Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins (which shares an owner with the WSJ) are to adopt the agency model on Amazon. HarperCollins chief exec Brian Murray told the WSJ that the deal followed a month of negotiation with Amazon.

Despite it being backlit, initial reviews about the reading experience on the iPad have been favourable. It's not yet clear whether the iPad will shake-up the publishing market in the way the iPad did music and the iPhone smartphones, but at the very least it's forcing the incumbents to adapt their business practices.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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I think this is a joke to be honest. Its because of publishers like Macmillan that ebooks havent particularly taken off. I mean why should I pay the exact same price for an ebook (or sometimes more) than what it would cost for an actual physical book?

It should be considerably cheaper because they do not have to pay the costs of printing the book etc.

Until their prices reflect this I wont be bothering with eBooks whatsoever.
neonplanet40
I think this is a joke to be honest. Its because of publishers like Macmillan that ebooks havent particularly taken off. I mean why should I pay the exact same price for an ebook (or sometimes more) than what it would cost for an actual physical book?

It should be considerably cheaper because they do not have to pay the costs of printing the book etc.

Until their prices reflect this I wont be bothering with eBooks whatsoever.
Ditto.

I also won't be buying an e-book reader until this problem is resolved, and won't be buying an i-Pad unless prices drop a LOT, because I simply don't see the appeal. I can't see how i-Pad is competition for e-book readers either, at least, not for me.
Agreed on the silly pricing, ebook prices need to come down, not go up as they are currently doing.

Kindle may be good for reading novels on its eink display,
but amazon/sony etc really should produce a colour version even if LCD based.

Or just produce a PC app to use on our netbooks with doesn't suck (the PC kindle app doesn't even scroll or allow different colours).

Magazine publishers do not like the idea of kindle as much as they do a full colour ipad.
Have to agree with the other posters on this. For me another disadvantage of an e-book reader is that when I've finished it, I cannot sell/pass it on to others who may appreciate it.

This, and the same prices as tree based book prices, is why I won't be getting one for the foreseeable future.