Sunday, January 31, 2010

Amazon/Macmillan thoughts

Have had a few e-mails asking my thoughts on what's going on at Amazon so I figured I'd share them here. For those that don't know Amazon has pulled all Macmillan books (ebook/paper/hardback) from their site. It will only be temporary as the publisher ultimately will charge what it wants. Macmillan doesn't like them charging only $9.99 for their e-books and from what I understand wants the price closer to $15. With Apples Ipad entering the market they are wanting to price the books from their ibookstore at closer to that price mark. Amazon is balking at that. From my vantage point I think Macmillan is making a big mistake. Amazon is trying to keep e-book prices low to encourage people to buy the Kindle and e-books in general, which I think is smart. Some people may be willing to pay $15 for an e-book but I don't understand why you would when you could get the paperback for less. If the situation continues it only will hurt Macmillan and its authors, but at the same time will help other lesser known authors get some additional sales. I do not believe people will ultimately support higher e-book prices and they will come back down anyway. I could never have an e-book listed that high as I'm completely against e-book prices being that high and firmly believe they should be a lot cheaper. We will see how it plays out.