Here. Amazon wants its publishers to continue to offer all new e-books for $9.99. Macmillan decided it needed to charge more, from 12.99 to 14.99. Initially, Amazon took Macmillan titles off its site and stated that it would stay the course and not raise its prices--but ultimately, Amazon capitulated.
I am not going to lie. One big reason I went with Kindle over nook was because I preferred the lower prices offered by the Kindle. It is very frustrating to me when new books (such as The Swan Thieves, as I mentioned before), are not available electronically on their pub dates. (You have to wait three mos. or around there for some new titles to be available.)
But would I pay more to get a new e-book title on time? I don't want to. It depends on the book. Maybe. If I have to, I guess I will, but it makes me angry. It's frustrating as a user to see a good deal slipping away, whether or not it's a good thing for publishing as a whole.
Finally, in preparation for the future, I am trying to fight instinctive revulsion response to the name "iPad," but the struggle is a hard one.
The thing I find most interesting about the Amazon/Macmillan price war, battle, erm... squabble, is that usually the introduction of new competition lowers prices.
ReplyDeleteI already had a bad flavor in my mouth with the release of the iPad, but convincing publishers that an electronic copy of their book is worth as much as a tangible copy is just obscene to me.
I don't own a Kindle, or any other ereader for that matter, but if I did...I'd probably just complain a little about it and then acquiesce and declare c'est la vie.
Good point about competition; I hadn't thought of it that way. I found this perspective interesting: http://rejecter.blogspot.com/2010/02/opinion-on-e-readers.html
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