Amazon.com said it would 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 on 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 hold down prices as competitors such as Barnes and Noble Inc, Sony Corp and Apple Inc line up to challenge its dominant position in the rapidly expanding market.
However, Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon 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 sales of higher-priced hardcovers.
Amazon told customers in a posting on its online Kindle Forum on Sunday that it “expressed our strong disagreement” with Macmillan’s determination to charge higher prices.
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.
“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.
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 said on 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,” he said.
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