Apple negotiated lower prices for its e-books, $14.99 to be the maximum price?

By on Feb 18, 2010 at 5:59 PM
General February 18, 2010

Apple Logo-Black + White

Apple shook up the e-book market with the recent introduction of iBookstore, its new e-book marketplace that is slated to debut on the iPad. Additionally, Apple partnered with five of the largest book publishers in a deal that would allow the publisher to set the prices of e-books to $12.99 to $14.99, and offered a profit-sharing arrangement in which Apple would take a 30% cut. Publishers boasted of their success and bullied Amazon into raising its Kindle e-book prices to the same price point set by Apple. All was well and good until a circulating rumor surfaced today that suggests Apple may have a trick or two up its sleeve. Apple has reportedly negotiated lower pricing on many of its e-books and that $12.99 – $14.99 price point being touted by publishers may actually be the top tier. Apple supposedly pushed publishers to offer discounts on best sellers, forcing prices down to a level that could rival Amazon’s $9.99 price point. Apple also reportedly negotiated a pricing scheme on non-bestsellers that is based upon the price of the hardcover edition of a book. An e-book with a hardcover edition worth less than $26 could have a price point well below $12.99. When the dust settles, we may have Amazon raising its e-book prices and Apple lowering its prices in a series of maneuvers that may have been brilliantly played by the boys from Cupertino.

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48 Comments

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  • DubYa

    Who reads books anymore?

    • Scott

      Educated people? Maybe I’m just weird, but I enjoy reading a book from time to time. It never hurts to expand one’s mind and/or knowledge. While I don’t own a kindle or plan on buying an iPad (mostly because I like physically holding a book), I think this is a cleaver move by Apple. We’ll see what Amazon does if this pans out to be true.

      • DubYa

        Speaking of education…They need to get college text books on this thing. That would be pretty amazing to integrate video, audio, and text to make the ultimate college text book. I certainly would have gotten more out of college if that were the case.

      • Scott

        I agree! And it’s funny how I already have a -3. Really? Was the educated people too much of the truth? Most people that post on here can’t even use proper English. But I wont get into how poor the USA’s educational system is…

      • me too

        You didn’t really say anything wrong… educated people do read books, because they have to be educated somehow… whereas intelligent people don’t necessarily need to read as many books, and cleaver people just need a chopping block. ;)

        I hate reading by the way… much of the information is misinformation and propaganda. I can think quite well for myself. But whatever.

        If I was Amazon, I’d just buy a publisher or 2 and put them right out of business.

        The thing that’s nauseating in all of this is that the publishers were being paid their full rate, Amazon was just selling books at a loss. Now, Amazon has to raise prices because publishers want books to “appear” to be more valuable.

    • Mrwirez

      Who pays for DRM vapor books @ $15.00 a pop..

    • tom

      Books are good, but we need Manga!!!!!! Lots of it.

  • Mofo

    Wow what a great move by the best marketing company in history. I own a MacBook, an iPhone and will definitely be picking up a 3G ipad even though I don’t read.

    Suck it mofos

    • VDubb

      So, in other words, you’re nothing but a tool?

  • Erich

    14.99 was set to be the max for any ebook. I think it is funny, the publishers are going to get screwed big time. Amazon was paying the full amount, 14.99 or what ever the publisher sold the book for. Amazon made no profit on ebook sales.
    Apple gets 30% of the profit. So that 14.99 ebook will get the publishers a whopping 10.49. I guess the publishers will be raking in the money now.
    “Apple lowering it prices in a series of maneuvers that was brilliantly played by company from Cupertino.”
    Call it what you want. I will call it crooked.
    I still say Apple is in for a rude awaking, the iPad is set to fail.

    • Goona

      Just like you said the ipod and iphone would fail?

      • crescentdave

        You keep track of what Erich said about the ipod and the iphone? Wow. He must be important.

        In breaking news … the only way this has been brilliantly played is Apple substituting media love for technical prowess. The ipad deserves its name. It’s not ready for prime time … maybe version 2.

      • Erich

        Don’t know what your talking about, I never said the iPhone or iPod would fail. Hell why would I? I’ve owned 2 2G’s, 3 3G’s, & 3 3GS’s. I own an ipod touch.

  • Randy

    And the losers in all this? The consumers who are left paying higher prices for books. Thanks Apple.

  • MonkeyCheese

    I don’t know why Amazon ever let the publishers bullied them into raising the prices. But this is one of those things I hope fails for Apple in a big way.

    • AuburnTiger

      I agree. Whatever ‘visionary’ at Apple that thought up of the iPad needs a demotion or termination. I don’t know what’s worse, the visionary or the board that approved the idea.

      Just look at the stock, since the Jan 27th announcement you would expect stock to even just slightly increase. What did it do? Right after it was revealed, the disappointment led to stock dropping from 210 to 190 a share after a 48 hr period. Whoops!

      • Goona

        Dumbasss, you know Apple’s stock always drops after every announcement. It mostly goes up in anticipation.

      • The Truth

        I’m confused as to why Goona’s comment was disliked? It is pretty consistent with their usual performance.

    • Tdot34

      No kidding Amazon has made hundreds of millions for publishers by bringing book sales to the internet… the publishers should have been happy to offer them the lowest price point. I guess greed won the e-book battle.

      • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

        Funny how buisness seems to follow after greed. Of course those people that don’t run a business or have never created a product or business wouldn’t know that the idea is to MAKE MONEY. Strange I know.

        Those who don’t know how to make money make you more money, just shouldn’t talk about money.

      • MOOSE WOLFGANSKY

        Man that Ipad must fit pretty snugly in those panties… DICKHEAD…..

      • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

        @ MOOSE,

        Considering it isn’t for sale yet, no it doesn’t… COCKSUCKER…

  • Len

    These “brilliant maneuvers” have not benefited anyone except Apple. BGR, maybe you should think more from the consumers perspective before you post your Apple fanboy BS.
    we know you love your big shinny TamPod, but come on. Apple has inflated the price of e-books which is not good for us. Open your eyes.

    • Sup Dooder

      Dood, BGR is saying it was a brilliant move by Apple to help Apple. That’s all. Get a grip. Apple screwed Amazon, who had been screwing us. Sure, books were $9.99, but they were DRM’d to the max.

      • fz553

        DRM’d to the max? What the hell is that even supposed to mean?

    • Versed

      Len, Apple didn’t, Amazon could have just refused to pay more, and keep the same profit. How long do you think that the publishers wouldn’t have given in. Especially since they would lose one of their largest vendors, if not THE largest vendor. And then toss B&N into it.

      Also I’m not sure who much Amazon isn’t in on this. 33% (or what ever percentage it is) is greater on $15 then $10.00. You can blame whomever. I blame them all.

  • Nerdherder

    Rumor from today?? Really?? Every news outlet, except BGR, covered this two weeks ago when the $12.99-$14.99 price points were initially revealed. Old news buddy

    • Sup Dooder

      There are other news outlets besides BGR? Heavens no!

  • Mrwirez

    Speaking of tablets… This is a real tablet.
    The SmaKit S7 Android tablet introduced at MWC

    http://tinyurl.com/yfqwox3

    • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

      “Expected” to hit the market “Mid year”? Is this company taking it’s product launch times from Microsoft? Just sayin’.

      Cheers

  • Jon

    I’d love to point out some of the crooked things that Apple does to customers, suppliers and pretty much people in general.

    Here’s a link that gives 5 very good reasons why we should be scared of Apple.

    http://tinyurl.com/yl8qnqs

    • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

      From a shareholders stance you could actaully say those are five very good reasons to invest in Apple.

  • cameron

    Not a fan of Apple entering the ebook market. I much preferred when Amazon made the deals. Also, I was perfectly happy paying for ebooks and reading them on the Kindle App for iPhone when they were $9.99 or less. For $14.99, I’d gladly go back to the library and revert to physically holding a book…or just using 4shared, converting PDF’s to epub files, and using Stanza.

  • jonathan

    Amazon needs to be a publishing company and buy another too.

  • Ryanbackin86

    Apple is sooooo good. They’ll raise the amazing price of ebooks from 9.99 to 14.99. Eff apple and their elitism.

    • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

      Or just invest in their stock and make some money.

  • http://www.nuacco.net click

    Apple is really making money out of it. Better to look for e-books available for free. Lots of site out there.. ;)

  • patrick

    Apple officially sucks. they seem desperate with this move. the ipon looks like shit and their phone is dead. and the publishers can suck it, i’d rather read this blog than deal with their bullshit. looks like apple is doing the same thing to books as they did to music. die apple die and shove my ipod where the sun don’t shine

    • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

      Wow! I wish I could say that I sold 15 million devices running a mobile OS and that somehow my company was dead. Amazing comment up there Patrick, simply amazing.

  • jk

    9.99 on my kindle=i’m buying books

    14.99=not buying books.

  • roach

    I know everyone says they saw this coming and I did comment about just this happening when mcmillan first started pulling their BS. Admittedly I thought apple would let the publishers have a couple weeks or even months before bending them back over the table. all I got to say is what I said before, why does Tennessee have such loose laws regarding liver transplants? I’m not wishing ill on anyone, but if Tennessee had stricter laws then the collusion to push amazon out of business would never have taken place. In closing: Die Screaming Steve, oh wait, is that wishing ill on someone?

    • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

      Spoken like a champ. Generally people without ability speak ill of those with ability. It is okay, you were given talents of some sort. The problem is that you worry so much about other people’s talents and how they choose to use them that you have chosen not to find yours. Good luck to you in the future sir/ma’am.

      Cheers

  • doublejizzle

    Depending on how much the textbooks are going to be, the iPad could possibly be a cheaper alternative. With textbooks going as high as around $200, I could easily justify buying an iPad and paying for a $15-$20 digital version.

    • Usty

      I couldn’t see a publisher taking a 80-200 dollar text book and selling it for 15-20 dollars when they don’t even want to sell a 30 dollar list price book for 9.99.

  • Dustin

    Apple can go to hell. They are one of the most evil companies in existence. Burn them down.

  • celia

    Apple is a highly competitive company, if every they may find trouble on their way, I’m pretty sure they can entangle their way. Well, that won’t be the case, unless the one that they’ll dwindled with is a company as Big as G.. Me? I think I will buy the digital product it it’ll land to 5 USD. Details: http://is.gd/8z3rK

  • TheWayItGoes

    apple is a company, companies are created to make money, period

  • I’m not giving my name to a machine

    “series of maneuvers that may have been brilliantly played by the boys from Cupertino.”

    Not for consumers. We have to pay more for ebooks than we did when Amazon was running the show. That sucks. How do you not see that?

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