Amazon.com says it will 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 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 keep prices low as competitors such as Barnes & Noble Inc., Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. line up to challenge its dominant position in the rapidly expanding market. But Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon for charging just $9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, saying the price is too low and could hurt sales of higher-priced hardcovers.
Amazon said in a posting on its online Kindle Forum Sunday that it “expressed our strong disagreement” with Macmillan’s determination to charge higher prices. Under Macmillan’s model, to be put in place in March, e-books will be priced from $12.99 to $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 in the posting.
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 told AP yesterday.