E-Book price war is heating up

[Hugh]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131...DeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDYm9va3NwdWxsZWRm

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Books pulled from Amazon.com in pricing dispute
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer
3 mins ago

NEW YORK – New copies of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," Andrew Young's "The Politician" and other books published by Macmillan were unavailable Saturday on Amazon.com, a drastic step in the ongoing dispute over e-book prices.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said he was told Friday that its books would be removed from Amazon.com, as would e-books for Amazon's Kindle e-reader. Books will be available on Amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said.

Sargent met with Amazon officials Thursday to discuss the publisher's new pricing model for e-books. He wrote in a letter to Macmillan authors and literary agents Saturday that the plan would allow Amazon to make more money selling Macmillan books and that Macmillan would make less. He characterized the dispute as a disagreement over "the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market."

Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon for charging just $9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, a price publishers say is too low and could hurt hardcover sales.

Sargent credited Amazon in his letter, calling the company a "valuable customer" and a "great innovator in our industry."

But, he wrote, the digital book industry needs to create a business model that provides equal opportunities for retailers. Under Macmillan's model, to be put in place in March, e-books will be priced from $12.99 to $14.99 when first released and prices will change over time.

For its part, Amazon wants to keep a lid on prices as competitors line up to challenge its dominant position in a rapidly expanding market. The company did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday.

Barnes & Noble's Nook and Sony Corp.'s e-book readers are already on sale. But the latest and most talked about challenger is Apple Inc., which just introduced the long-awaited iPad tablet computer and a new online book store modeled on iTunes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, suggested publishers may offer some e-titles to Apple before they are allowed to go on sales at Amazon.com

The e-book market is an increasingly important one for Amazon. The company hasn't given specific sales figures on the Kindle, but CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday that "millions" own the device. The company now sells six digital copies to every 10 physical ones of books available in either format.

Authors and publishers also see opportunity in e-books, particularly as a way to expand the market for older titles that are more difficult for readers to obtain otherwise.

But they worry that discounting by retailers will cannibalize sales of print editions. While Amazon typically sells new releases for just $9.99 in its Kindle store, hardcover editions generally carry a list price of more than $24.

To preserve the more lucrative hardcover business, publishers including Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Hachette Book Group USA have said they will impose delays on the release of digital copies.

___

AP Business Writer Andrew Vanacore in New York contributed to this report.

 

[Peder]

... The company now sells six digital copies to every 10 physical ones of books available in either format.

That is an absolutely stunning, eye-popping statistic, if I understand it correctly!

Mr/s. Bookreader, the future has arrived.

 

[beer good]

That is an absolutely stunning, eye-popping statistic, if I understand it correctly!

And I'll believe it when they present some actual sales figures of specific titles, not to mention the actual Kindle itself. Amazon are great at PR, and they know how to spin a statistic to make it sound good. Remember the "e-books outsold paper books over Christmas" news a couple of weeks ago? Where what actually happened was that on Christmas Day, when most people don't sit in front of their computer to order books from Amazon, a lot of people who'd gotten Kindles for Christmas tried them out by downloading a bunch of free books from Amazon?

For starters, with this one, it says "either" format. Not "both" formats. Obviously the books available in only e-format don't sell in paper format. And as for "price war", let's not overlook that the vast majority of the books on Amazon's Kindle bestseller list carry the hefty price tag of $0.00.

 

[Fish Lady]

What this means to me - a Kindle owner who is notoriously cheap - is that if the prices of new releases go up, then I'll just go back to waiting for the lower priced digital copy of the paperback. If I absolutely HAVE to read the book right away, I'll probably get a copy from the library.

 

[Peder]

...For starters, with this one, it says "either" format. Not "both" formats. ...

Hi Beer Good,
Good to hear from you again.
I'm always willing to stand corrected without a murmur if I am wrong, and I agree that trustworthy sales data will resolve any possible ambiguity in the sentence that you parse.
I trust you'll eagerly post that information if you come across it -- whichever way it shows the truth to be.
I'm eager to hear,
Sincerely
Peder
:flowers:

 

[Peder]

...if the prices of new releases go up, ...

That does seem to be the battleground -- prices and profits, and who is going to get what size share of the larger profit associated with e-books. Until competition drives prices down and drives e-books toward a larger share of market. If the economics are indeed that way, then it's gotta happen.

Or, morbid thought, maybe it just takes the passing away of a generation of bookreaders for the affection for tree-books to also disappear.

But I still think, as stated, we are looking at the future right now.

 

[Fish Lady]

I know that I've had discussions on another MB I visit wondering if the influx of ereaders will result in a generation of non-readers because of a decrease in the availability of paper books, but I tend toward the opinion that there will still be a need for libraries that will house "real" books.

I also think that as ereaders become more popular and less expensive, and IF the software becomes sophisticated enough to get rid of the DRM crap, then it'll be easier to share books. I haven't looked into specifically, but I did hear a discussion that the B&N's ereader allows for a temporary sharing of ebooks between users and as a result, Amazon is looking into the same sort of option.

 

[Peder]

I know that I've had discussions on another MB I visit wondering if the influx of ereaders will result in a generation of non-readers because of a decrease in the availability of paper books, but I tend toward the opinion that there will still be a need for libraries that will house "real" books.

My own guess is that there will always be an insatiable interest in stories, in whatever medium they might be stored and presented (daily news, soap operas, movies, harlequins, classics, graphic novels, ebooks, hard books, etc). That demand will always be there IMO. So far it has sustained itself through clay tablets, papyri, paper scrolls, magazine serials, bound books and TV, with e-books and maybe "feelies" to come, in 1984.

 

[Hugh]

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Amazon.com to capitulate to Macmillan price demand
By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer David Koenig, Ap Business Writer
Sun Jan 31, 8:20 pm ET

Amazon.com says it will give in to publishing giant Macmillan and agree to sell electronic versions of its books even at prices it considers too high.

New copies of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," Andrew Young's "The Politician" and other books published by Macmillan were unavailable Saturday on Amazon.com, after the retailer pulled the titles in a surprising reaction to the publisher's new pricing model for e-books.

Amazon wants to tamp down prices as competitors such as Barnes & Noble Inc., Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. line up to challenge its dominant position in the rapidly expanding market. But Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon for charging just $9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, a price publishers say is too low and could hurt sales of higher priced hardcovers.

Amazon told customers in a posting on its online Kindle Forum Sunday that it "expressed our strong disagreement" with Macmillan's determination to charge higher prices. Under Macmillan's model, to be put in place in March, e-books will be priced from $12.99 to $14.99 when first released and prices will change over time.

"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 said in the posting.

Macmillan is one of the world's largest English-language publishers with divisions including St. Martin's Press, Henry Holt & Co. and Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

"We are in discussions with Amazon about how to resolve our differences," Macmillan CEO John Sargent told The Associated Press Sunday. He declined to comment further.

Amazon said other publishers and independent presses might "see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative."

Amazon faces new challengers to the Kindle, including Barnes & Noble's Nook and Sony's e-book reader, plus the upcoming iPad table computer from Apple. The Seattle company sells about six e-books for every 10 paper ones when titles are available in either format. However, the popularity of e-books has driven publishers such as Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Hachette Book Group USA to say they will delay the release of e-books in order to protect hardcover sales.

___

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report from New York.

 

[Chris_Morey]

To those who have e-readers: what has been your experience reading for long periods on them? Is it comfortable over longer spans of time?

 

[Fish Lady]

I have a kindle and I can read for hours on it without any problems. I LOVE mine when I travel. I can take dozens of books with me in one small package. Toss in my iPhone and I have all of my entertainment covered for the long trip

 

[booktags]

This is bad news in the short run, but it'll all work out in the long run. The ebooks will eventually be priced pretty low as the competition heats up.

 

[Heinrich Böll]

to me this isn't any different than a publisher releasing the hardcover version first and releasing the paperback version at a later date. They've done this for decades so correct me if I'm wrong.

they've always made you wait for the cheaper paperback version, if you really wanted to read it immediately you'd have to buy the hardback version or rent from the library.