Will The Book Industry Get Napstered?
If the publishers force Amazon to raise prices on e-books, that’s what will happen.
The book publishers are in the process of picking a fight with Amazon and other sellers over the pricing of e-books. If the publishers are lucky, they’ll lose. Here’s why.
Publishers generally sell e-books to Amazon and its competitors for the same price they sell paper books to retailers—about half the list price of the paper version. Amazon and the others insist on selling most e-books for about $9.99, which pleases the publishers when the e-book retail price is close to that of the paper edition: Currently, Amazon is selling the $14 list paperback of The Big Sleep for $10.98 and the electronic Kindle version for $9.99.
The publishers dislike the rigidity of the e-book price, however, when the hardcover lists for $27.95 and Amazon sells it at a loss for $9.99. Why? For one thing, the publishers worry that the e-book vendors are robbing them of their ability to set prices by encouraging customers to think that every b