Macmillan to Amazon: We Name Our Own E-Book Prices

Written by: Matt Hartley on 2/01/10 | Filed Under Mobile | Share

With their tail between their legs, Amazon has given in to Macmillan’s demands on e-book pricing. According to TechCrunch, the entire fiasco surrounding e-book pricing is a matter of about $5. Amazon wanted to price Macmillan’s e-books at about $10, Macmillan demanded $15.

What does this mean to you?

Personally, I’m with Amazon on this. While I’m no fan of the Kindle hardware, I firmly believe that as a software concept, the Kindle has only begun to touch on its full potential. Macmillan is just being greedy. I might not suggest this if there were printing or distribution costs involved, but due to the digital nature here, there is no other explanation possible.

Tagged as: amazon, e-book, kindle, Macmillan

Other related articles:

WilsonTech1

I've written on several blogs about this today and I'm tired, but I'll state my main point again: Publishers will NEVER be able to justify an eBook over $10 to me. EVER. The costs to make a book are NOT there. I personally think ALL eBooks should be $5, but that's probably not realistic.

Here's the thing retailers never get (and I worked sales for years): Which would you rather have: 10,000 customers at $5, or $5000 at $10? The obvious answer is the former. The more people with your product, the more buzz/referrals it creates. I've never understood the model of charging as much as possible; you end up selling to a few. Computers have long made this mistake, Apple DEFINITELY makes this mistake, but Google gets it, and I think in a large sense, so does Amazon. A lower price means more Kindles, which means more books sold.

MacMillan is shooting themselves in the foot, and time will show that. But Amazon angered me by capitulating so easily, and for leaving that juvenile forum post. It's as if Jeff Bezos is on vacation and left his teenage son to run the place for the weekend.