Amazon.com and MacMillan, one of the nation’s largest publishers, engaged in a bit of tussle over the last few days. It was about the much-debated (within the publishing industry anyway) pricing Amazon had chosen to offer on Kindle e-book editions of best-selling books.
Where a hardcover best-seller might have a retail price of $25 to $30, Kindle editions were offered at $9.99.
Since Amazon pays about half of the retail price for each Kindle edition sold, the company was apparently using the $9.99 pricing as a lost-leader in an effort to sell more Kindle e-readers which in turn would create a greater demand for Kindle e-books.
Publishers, however, were worried that, in the nascent e-book business, consumers would become fixated on a belief that e-books should sell at considerably lower prices than hardcover books.
MacMillan raised a fuss over the discounted pricing and, for a few days, Amazon quit selling thousands of MacMillan titles directly—you could still buy the titles through Amazon from other vendors.
Yesterday, Amazon reversed course and capitulated. They will now offer Kindle editions of MacMillan titles at the publisher-suggested prices of around $12.99 to $14.99.
In my opinion much of this is moot or soon will be.
Within five years, digital files of most books will be stored in one or two huge repositories where the rights owners—publishers, authors, whoever—will dictate how much they want to charge for each downloaded copy; perhaps with prices for different categories of buyers such as libraries, brick-and-mortar stores—who will use equipment that prints and binds a book while you wait—and online retailers.
Amazon and other retailers will tap into these repositories, downloading and delivering a copy each time they get an order for a book. The retailer will add whatever mark-up their efficiencies and market pressures allow to the price they pay.
The repository will handle collecting from the retailer and paying the publisher or other rights holder.
Look for Amazon to discontinue stocking printed editions of most titles, prefering to download and print each book when a customer orders one.
Just a write thought.