New copies of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Andrew Young’s The Politician and other books published by Macmillan were unavailable on Saturday on amazon.com, a drastic step in the ongoing dispute over e-book prices.
Macmillan chief executive John Sargent said he was told on Friday that its books would be removed from amazon.com, as would its e-books for the Kindle e-reader. The firm’s books would still be available on amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said.
Sargent met with amazon.com officials on Thursday to discuss the publisher’s new pricing model for e-books. He wrote in a letter to Macmillan authors and literary agents on Saturday that the plan would allow amazon.com 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.com for charging just US$9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, a price publishers say is too low and could hurt hardcover sales, which generally carry a list price of more than US$24.
Macmillan is one of the world’s largest English-language publishers. Its divisions include St Martin’s Press, itself one of the largest publishers in the US; Henry Holt & Co., one of the oldest publishers in the US; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and Tor, the leading science fiction publisher.
Sargent credited amazon.com 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 next month, e-books will be priced from US$12.99 to US$14.99 when first released and prices will change over time.
For its part, amazon.com 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 on 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 has just introduced its long-awaited iPad tablet computer and a new online book store modeled on iTunes. Apple chief executive 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 sale at amazon.com.
The e-book market is an increasingly important sector for amazon.com.
The company hasn’t given specific sales figures on the Kindle, but chief executive Jeff Bezos said on Thursday that “millions” own the device. The company now sells six digital copies to every 10 physical ones of books available in either format.
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.
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