I love my 1st generation Kindle. It is my lifeline to sanity on long, endless flights and my escape to fantastical adventures, romantic relationships and exotic locales. I would not have survived that 15 hour flight from LAX to Sydney without the long battery life and adjustable font formatting. And I dearly love that they have activated the ‘Buy It Now’ features for ebooks p
rior to launch dates. It’s like getting a surprise gift when it shows up automatically on release day!
This week, Apple announced the iPad. At first glance, the iPad seems to be just a shiny, new Apple gadget for the tekkie geeks (I’ll cop to being one myself!). But Apple is positioning the iPad to compete directly with the netbook and ebook markets. And we’ve learned this past week about negotiations that Apple has had with several major publishers, leading up to the launch of the iPad. The app for these ebooks is called iBook.
As publishers have been wrestling with this rapidly changing facet of the industry, one of the biggest points of discussion has been centered around the price point of a new ebook, especially hardcover new releases from major authors. Amazon.com has a policy of marking any NY Times best seller at $9.99, a price point that is considered exceptionally low by the major publishers.
Initially, the Apple ebook content was reported to be ‘enhanced’ digital content, and the results of early negotiations with publishers sounded like this content would be priced higher, say in the $15 neighborhood. Does video enhancement, author interviews and social media content appeal to you? It certainly sounds like an interesting approach, and one that the ebook purchasing market seems poised to decide. It just remains to be seen where the sales would fall: standard content or enhanced?
But today a new wrinkle in the world of ebooks is taking shape. Apparently Macmillan, one of the publishers who has signed on to the Apple iBookstore, and Amazon are at such odds over the price point of ebooks that Amazon has started removing Macmillan books from their site (see screen prints Jane posted at Dear Author). And not just ebooks, folks. Amazon has pulled the Kindle files AND pulled down the ‘Buy It Now’ links for paperback editions. The only way to purchase is used through a 3rd party.
Sure sounds to me like the first shot across the bow between publishers and Amazon.
Will the publishers win and get Amazon to raise the price point? Will Amazon dig in and stick with their $9.99 point or, heaven forbid, resort to even more bizarre tactics like removing ebook files already purchased? Will the rift remain and ebook readers be forced to manage separate reading devices or shopping portals to read the authors they love?
As an avid Kindle ebook reader, I can’t help feeling like I’m caught in the middle on this and will be the one penalized in the end. The beauty of my Kindle is the ease and selection, and this has all of the signs of becoming convoluted and difficult very quickly.
Whatever you do, guys, don’t forget about us. You know: the book buying public.
I just want to read great books by my favorite authors on the reading platform of my choice.
This is a great post. As a fellow happy Kindle owner, who also loves her Macbook and iTouch, the news this morning is so distressing. However, I am finding that I can buy the Kleypas and other Macmillan romance titles this morning, so maybe things will not turn out to be as awful as they seem right now.
Hi RRRJessica,
Sure, I can still purchase them from other vendors (like BooksOnBoard). But only the old Avon titles are available through Amazon; more recent, St Martin’s titles, are all gone. One way or the other, I’ll find what I want to read. What bothers me the most, though, is this Big Bully mentality that’s playing out here. It is, no doubt, the first of many such actiions.
Right now, my heart goes out to all of the authors who are pubbed with Macmillan. Amazon is one of the largest book retailers in the world and is one of the few options left for some towns, like Laredo, TX. http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/01/22/laredo.books/index.html
It’ll sort out in the end. But how long?