Amazon Removes Macmillan Books

Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.

The publisher’s books can be purchased only from third parties onAmazon.com.

A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. The person did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of e-books to around $15 from $9.99.

Macmillan is one of the publishers signed on to offer books to Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet unveiled earlier this week.

More here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/technology/30amazon.html

So yeah, it appears to be about the iPad deal: if Amazon has to follow the iBooks pricing structure, the Kindle's dead, basically.

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Permalink Reply by I. J. Parker on February 2, 2010 at 12:05am

Even without clarification of the finer points, the article has one thing right. Whatever the big boys do, the author will not win. Note who gets the profit when the price goes up. Not the author.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Loomis on February 2, 2010 at 2:14am

Actually I think the main concern with the higher price point is not that my publisher makes money--as I said, if they're flush things are likely to be better for me than if they're broke. The problem with higher prices for ebooks is that to some extent it's bound to promote piracy--although those who are inclined to steal electronic media would do so even if the price point was .01.

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Permalink Reply by I. J. Parker on February 2, 2010 at 4:49am

Yes, but the proposed 14.99 ( the Ipod price) will only apply to selected titles (for Apple and for Amazon). In other words, only recent bestselling releases are affected.

Publisher's Lunch has a detailed rehash of the current and likely future status of Macmillan vs Amazon, including some guesswork as to when Macmillan titles will reappear on Amazon. Much of the article focuses on contractual royalties paid by publishers to authors. None of this flap will affect those. In fact, it had been Macmillan's plan to cut royalties from 25 % to 20%. This was never meant to protect authors' interests, only those of the publishers.

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Permalink Reply by I. J. Parker on February 2, 2010 at 11:50pm

Make that Ipad.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Loomis on February 2, 2010 at 11:56pm

It's worth noting that the agents' association wants to push the standard ebook royalty to 50%. Obvious self-interest involved, but they make a valid point: why should everybody get rich off of ebooks but the people who actually write them?

This is why it's good to have an agent, folks. Pending the details, as always.