Over the past few days, Amazon.com has told Macmillan Books where they can stick it regarding its demands for pricing eBooks on Kindle – and then Amazon caved.
See, after the iPad was announced, Macmillan demanded that its eBook prices be uniform across the board. And, since the prices would be between $12.99 and $14.99 for certain “hardcover” and bestseller titles in Apple’s iBook Store, then Amazon had to raise prices as well.
Amazon’s response?
“Stick it.”
I’m paraphrasing, of course. But that’s the basic message Amazon sent when it removed all Macmillan books from Amazon.com. That was a pretty loud message given that Macmillan is one of the “big six” publisher with gobs of titles available on Amazon.com.
The blogosphere and tech pundits have been buzzing wildly over the weekend about this move by Amazon. And then, yesterday, Amazon caved.
Macmillan books are back on Amazon.com, and certain Macmillan eBooks are apparently going to get a price hike of $3 to $5 above the $9.99 norm. Amazon issued the following to statement concerning the matter:
Dear Customers:
Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. 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. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!
Thank you for being a customer.
[via Amazon Kindle Team]
I’d be willing to bet we’re only scratching the surface of the Kindle/iPad turf wars. We’ll see if other publishers weigh in anytime soon….
