Hachette becomes the third major publisher to pressure Amazon for higher ebook prices

By on Feb 6, 2010 at 7:48 AM
General February 6, 2010

amazon_logo1

Amazon must feel like a punching bag, repeatedly absorbing blows from book publishers who with each successful strike are raising e-book prices and eroding Amazon’s pricing stronghold in the ebook market. The latest publisher to join in this carnage is Hachette who is pushing Amazon to raise e-book prices to the new industry standard of a $12.99-$14.99 price point set by Steve Jobs and friends with the introduction of the iPad. Hachette is one of the “Apple Five” and the third to seek a price increase from Amazon in the week following the iPad’s announcement. When all is said and done, the $9.99 e-book price model will soon be obsolete and Amazon must find another way to innovate if it wants to retain its lead as the best selling e-reader on the market, because its price advantage is going out the window.

Read

Tags:
, ,
59 Comments

Related Articles

  • sampsy

    If only customers would collude together in a similar fashion and not buy this overrated and overpriced ‘device’. Too bad none of the rational people speak ‘Sheep’

    • http://none Mike

      Overrated? alot of peopel think its lacking alot of features it should have I’m one of them. But i’ll still buy one cause nothing else cool exists yet and only apple will make something better than the Ipad anyways. no other tech companies have a clue. Plus Apple’s Appstore is just their ACE in the hole. Nobody can create a device with 10,000′s of utilities and nobody can do it like Apple. Apple unfortunately downgraded the IPAD so they could have plenty of room for upgrades to sell the next generation of Ipad’s next year. I mean it should of come with a forward facing camera with Steve Jobs skyping with his sister sitter in his leather lounge chair over Wifi. But we’ll have to wait till next year till he does that is my bet. I’ll buy one this year & next year too if its nicely upgraded either way. I’m in IT I gotta have this stuff if you don’t know the latest gadgets and how people use them you can’t profit from it.

      • B

        Jesus.. You’re exactly the type of person he is talking about. I really don’t like making general statements, but it is people/consumers like you who allow Apple to continue that same business model.

  • Erich

    I can’t get over the amount of idiots that believe this is Amazon’s fault. Amazon PAID the FULL asking price on each book sold to the publishers.
    If Amazon refuses to raise they eventually will not have any ebooks to sell.
    Apple knows the if they sell the ebooks for more than 9.99 people aren’t going to buy them, when they can get the same thing for less. So they tell the publishers we will sell them at your asking cost, but you have to pull from Amazon, or force them to charge the same price that we sell them for.
    So yes this is all on Apple plain & simple.
    I don’t use an ebook & never have. Personally I hope the iPad is the biggest flop of the century. Apple has crossed a line they should have never drawn.
    What is funny is Amazon pays the full price & keeps nothing for themselves. I wonder what percentage Apple gets to pocket from each sell.

  • Sam

    This pricing will just make people pirate like apps for the iPhone.

    • http://zkentspain.blogspot.com Kent

      or any other current ebook app :P .

  • jonathan

    Just downloaded a $9.99 ebook for my Kindle2 last night, might as well take advantage before the prices crank up. I will still use my Kindle for the free ebooks at sites like manybooks.net, still have my fictionwise books I can convert over. Lastly, I still have the cheaper Costco books you can buy, paperbacks and library. I probably will end up buying the Ipad sometime late this year, but won’t buy any of their Ebooks. If folks don’t buy their ebooks then, maybe prices will come down.

  • Slobby

    Amazon… don’t back down. Keep your model, if they pull out of your ebook plan, pull all of their tangible books. Let people go elsewhere to buy them. Chance are, they won’t at the higher prices.
    Who buys a hardcover at $24.95 anyway? Most people get them on amazon or on sale in bookstores for 16. You’re telling me they are bitching about $6 when they have to print, ship and distribute? This is greed. I hope their books go the way of newspapers.
    And when the apple 5 come crawling back, demand a higher %.

    • Ben

      If Amazon keep their model. No one else can sell for less than Amazon. Otherwise Publishers/Authors can kiss their 70% cut goodbye.

      Their model is simply not sustainable. By the time Amazon have enough leverage (e.g. pulling their ebooks from their store = huge loss for the publishers) they WILL renegotiate with the publishers so they don’t have to lose money. By then Publishers will be in a really bad position to negotiate. They might be forced to sell eBooks to Amazon significantly less than their current price or have less of the cut.

      Also it’s probably illegal for Amazon to pull all their tangible books because of ebook dispute.

      But hey what do I know, you are the one who love DRM and Proprietary file formats.

    • Ben

      Also the reason “competition” brought the price UP is because the 9.99 price is artificially set. If it’s set by real people using real money buying ebooks, competition will most certainly bring it down.

      That is simple economics.

  • Ladwig

    There are plenty of small ebook stores selling ebooks for a lot cheaper. There’s no reason to purchase from the big conglomerates just for a name. Like internationalagora or Aspen presses, or Dreamspinner.

  • Hero

    I’m with you Biggles. I think Apple blew this one for the ebook reading masses. They could have chosen to hold the price line with publishers at $9.99, but they wanted exactly what’s happening to Amazon to take place. The hope is the consumer will now say, “If I’m going to pay $14 bucks for a book anyway, I might as well get it on a slicker device–the ipad.” Unless I’m missing something the reasoning seems pretty basic here… Apple, please exit stage left. Another’s interest in an e-reader just went POOF!

  • avinyc

    miguel, I think you are misunderstanding the situation here. Amazon is promoting their kindle with discounted e-books while still paying whatever price the publishers want. Now the publisher’s want to set up price fixing to give apple an edge when entering the e-reader competition. If this situation was reversed, how would you feel if Amazon asked music companies to raise the price of songs to 5 dollars?

    Knowing that the e-books were fair to sell at 9.99 and now being raised (the most asinine version of a price war) for competition is going to turn off many consumers. I bet there will be a reverse on this policy change once enough pressure mounts.

  • Versed

    Exactly, it has nothing to do with if its a kindle, ipad or whatever. The fools who believe its only Apple’s fault are just that fools. Its the greed of the publishers, its the lack of intestines of Amazon etal. Or has anyone thought, Amazon themselves is going to make more on this themselves.

  • Quasar

    This is a quote from Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp; “We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99. They don’t pay us that. They pay us the full wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge.”

  • Sprinter

    Miguel: You just disagreed with him by saying the same thing he said.

    I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Miguel Alverez. I think you need a hug.

  • Erich

    sure. here is another fact that came straight from my ass. your a moron. you have no clue what is going on in this situation. pull your head out of your ass. read this & you might actually learn something
    http://www.bgr.com/2010/02/03/amazons-stronghold-on-e-book-pricing-crumbles-will-renegotiate-with-macmillan-and-harpercollins/

    @quasar, thank you for posting that.

  • Erich

    Seriously, open you eyes. Amazon never had 1 issue selling ebooks for 9.99, then paying 14.99 (or what ever the cost was).
    The people with the issue are Apple & the publishers.
    Apple’s issues, can’t handle competition, can’t get a % of profits if selling for 9.99.
    Publishers issue, if Amazon sells ebooks at a lower cost then everyone else, there is no way to get more companies to sell ebooks.

    I would really like to know how you get that I assisted you. Amazon’s pricing was working perfectly fine. Amazon was selling plenty of Kindles & ebooks, publishers were getting paid the full asking price, consumers were getting a good deal.
    Along comes Apple & sends a big F you to the consumer.

  • Tyler

    You are the biggest dumbass i think that i have read comments from. You really need to get off of steve jobs dick. Please explain to me how amazon eating the extra cost for the books doesn’t benefit us as the consumer? If apple had left their fucking mouth shut and not bitched about how they weren’t the monoply in a certain market then there would be no problem. It is all apple’s fault for getting involved in a market they shouldn’t be in apple needs to stick to the overpriced crap they usually sell and quit trying to take over the world with their overpriced shit.Is 5.1 billion dollars not enough steve jobs i mean shit how much more money do you want?

1 2
blog comments powered by Disqus