February 03, 2010

Traditional Publishers Finally Standing Up to Amazon | printable version

This may be old news to you now but, just in case you missed it, Amazon had a showdown with Macmillan (one of the "Big 6" traditional publishers) over the weekend...and Macmillan appears to have won. Other large publishers are expected to follow suit.

Basically, Macmillan wants the right to set their own retail prices for ebooks, and to set their own sales terms to bookstores. In my opinion, this is how it should be. The publisher should be able to dictate the terms of sales of their books to bookstores. Bookstores, of course, can negotiate their own purchase terms with a publisher but no bookstore should be able to dictate how, or at what price, a publisher sells their books elsewhere.

You can read my comments on this situation in detail under Morris Rosenthal's article HERE.

PublishersWeekly.com is posting frequent updates to this situation.

And, finally, don't miss this article in Fast Company:
Amazon Revealed: It Hates You, and It Hates Publishers

UPDATE: Harper Collins is also now demanding better terms from Amazon. Click HERE to read comments by News Corp Chief Rupert Murdoch.