It looks like the ghost of the Amazon/Macmillan feud is still lingering in the air.
The New York Times has a lengthy piece covering the ongoing confidential discussions between Amazon and publishers. Apparently Amazon is up to its old tricks again, threatening publishers that it may stop selling their books if they do not agree to a list of concessions.
Amazon is apparently conceding the agency pricing model for e-books that most of the major publishers want, but if the Times’s sources can be believed it is demanding those publishers agree to three-year contracts as well as stipulate that no other e-book sellers could have lower prices or better terms. Publishers are reluctant to commit to a contract of that length given how much the e-book industry can change in just a short time.
Meanwhile, Apple seems to be asking much the same thing, at least insofar as lowest prices go. And while Amazon is only agreeing to the agency pricing model for the major publishers and trying to keep the smaller publishers on its standard wholesale model, Apple is offering it to all publishers, large and small—which means that if a publisher takes Apple up on it, he will need to insist on agency pricing with Amazon, too, or else run afoul of the lowest-price clause.
And hovering over all these publishers’ heads like a sword of Damocles is Amazon’s ability to remove the “Buy” buttons from its site and deprive them of a substantial source of revenue. If Amazon were to pull this sort of thing again, the outcry would probably be considerable—but that didn’t stop Amazon from keeping Macmillan’s books unavailable by direct sale for a whole week.
There can be no doubt that we are living in interesting times.
Frankly, I’m getting tired of Amazon, and the harm it is causing the eBook world.
It only supports its own formats, so we can’t check out library books on our Kindles. Neither can we read our Kindle books on a version of software that runs on PowerPCs, when Amazon’s Mac software only works on Intel machines. Then it plays these games.
I won’t buy any books from Amazon anymore. Either I buy DRM free ePub eBooks, that can be read anywhere, or I get the book from the library.
I really haven’t changed my mind since this whole thing has blown up. Amazon and the publishers have to work this out or they are going to both be left out in the cold.
When the whole thing with the publishers blew up I tried to put my thoughts down in these two blogs.
http://www.csdaley.com/2010/01/amazon-slap-down.html
http://www.csdaley.com/2010/01/book-publishing-goes-boom.html
Yesterday I bought the latest book from the Wheel of Time series (from TOR) at the Sony eBook Store for 10.50$. Out of interest I looked today on Amazon and was surprised to find it there for 7.99$. Seems Macmillan is not very consistent yet.
Amazon has every right as proprietor of its business to negotiate anything it wants. If the publishers don’t like it, they shouldn’t have slept with Amazon for so long. I have no empathy or sympathy for any of the big publishers. They have been digging their own grave for years now. They have had many other options that they have squandered away over the years.
I’m not so sure why people are so down on Amazon. Apple is playing hardball too. Accept their agency model or you can’t play in their sandbox. What Amazon seems to be going for is parity. If the price is fixed, it is the same at Amazon and Apple, not $14.99 at Amazon and $9.99 at Apple. Not so unreasonable.
For another interpretation based on reading the NY Times writers’ word-choices with interest + some history of all this, please see my http://bit.ly/kwmacm8
It’s amazing how they managed to apply the words “hardball” “threatening” “demanding” only to Amazon, who is being pressured to agree to Apple’s Agency plan and pricing.
The words used for Apple’s wish for a guarantee is termed a “requirement” rather than a “demand” and the publishers “sought” re-negotiations with Amazon. Amazon’s the bully in the yard. But they’re all throwing their weight around.
– Andrys
I’m not keen on either Amazon or Apple, but (though I have no plans to buy the ipad) I am interested to see if Apple will try to lock everyone into its particular stores as well.
If Apple is more open about where you get your books from, they will be marginally less unbearable.
Amazon has gone to “buy only if you can’t get it anywhere else” for me.
It will be interesting to see if Baen books end up being unavailable through Amazon, for instance.
ilukar,
Yes, you have two lockers there 🙂 Apple will put its own DRM over the ePub files. Not compatible with Adobe.
Double standards as usual.. the power of fanboys 😛
If there’s someone to blame for this whole mess its the publishers.
illukar, Baen books are already unavailable through Amazon as e-books. Baen sells them themselves (though they include instructions for how they can be put onto the Kindle, and presumably will for the iPad too).