{"id":261562,"date":"2010-02-01T05:57:15","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T10:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100131\/2223217982.shtml"},"modified":"2010-02-01T05:57:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T10:57:15","slug":"amazon-macmillan-fight-over-ebook-prices-after-amazon-removes-macmillan-titles-it-caves-to-higher-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/261562","title":{"rendered":"Amazon, Macmillan Fight Over Ebook Prices; After Amazon Removes Macmillan Titles, It Caves To Higher Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, there was a sudden realization that Amazon had removed books published by publishing giant Macmillan<\/a>, apparently over a dispute concerning ebook pricing. Of course, Amazon wasn’t just removing Macmillan ebooks, but the physical books as well. After a bit of back and forth over the weekend, Amazon caved in and accepted the way Macmillan wants to price books<\/a>, which means that Macmillan sets the retail price, and Amazon gets a cut. Previously, Amazon had paid a wholesale price and then got to set the retail prices itself.<\/p>\n

I had been under the impression that when manufacturers tell retailers what the end user price is, it’s a form of price fixing, but apparently not…<\/p>\n

Of course, what may seem odd about this is that it appears Macmillan will make less<\/i> per ebook under this model. That’s because with its old wholesale pricing, Amazon was actually losing money<\/a> on every ebook sold. As the NY Times notes:<\/p>\n


\nIn the model that Amazon prefers, publishers typically collect $12.50 to $17.50 for new e-books. Under the new agency model, publishers will typically make $9 to $10.50 on new digital editions.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why are publishers specifically trying to limit their own profits from ebooks? Because they’re afraid of ebooks cannibalizing hardcover book sales, which is why they’re also looking to delay ebook releases<\/a>. In fact, in this case, Amazon was given the choice of either increasing the retail price for consumers on Macmillan ebooks, or getting them many months later. All in all, this looks like publishers hurting themselves, yet again, by going against what consumers want in a misguided effort to preserve the way things used to be. Yet, in an age when users are punishing authors and publishers<\/a> who don’t treat them right, this could backfire in a big way.<\/p>\n

Permalink<\/a> | Comments<\/a> | Email This Story<\/a>
\n

\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, there was a sudden realization that Amazon had removed books published by publishing giant Macmillan, apparently over a dispute concerning ebook pricing. Of course, Amazon wasn’t just removing Macmillan ebooks, but the physical books as well. After a bit of back and forth over the weekend, Amazon caved in and accepted the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}