Publisher Battles With Amazon Continue
February 5th, 2010
Another major publishing group has taken issue with Amazon’s $9.99 ebook price limit. This time it’s Hachette Book Group who were one of the companies mentioned by Apple in the iPad keynote. Hachette CEO Dave Young has announced that the group wants to shift to the agency model for publishing, which allows them to have a variable price.
In related news, a recent full page NYT ad for a book printed by MacMillan says “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon.” This shows just how deep the split is starting to run, and the power of the iPad that it’s caused this much strife. Think about how big Amazon is, and how much shopping everyone does there. To have that jeopardized due to a $500 gadget? Curious.
MacMillan CEO John Sargent has said
Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.
If any of our readers are interested in looking at the author’s take on this whole argument, a few writers have given their responses. They tend towards long form, but are excellent reads if you’re as intrigued as I am about how the whole system works. Here are responses by Charlie Stross, Tobias Buckell and Scott Westerfield.
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