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Amazon shocked consumers, publishers and authors on January 29 when it pulled Macmillan books from direct sale on Amazon.com over an e-book pricing dispute. Amazon and Macmillan each believed that its model was the best, and that the other company would have to cave to its demands. Amazon may have shot off the first round in this pricing war, but before the weekend was over it waved a white flag of surrender.
On January 29, the New York Times reported that Amazon.com had pulled all Macmillan books.
Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.
The publisher's books can be purchased only from third parties on Amazon.com.
After reading the article, I hopped over to Amazon and searched for one of the bigger Macmillan titles, Jeffery Eugenides' Middlesex. (I figured that as an Oprah book club pick, it would be a good one to start with). It was gone. Well not completely gone, but only available from third-party sellers. It wasn't that I didn't believe the New York Times article as much as I had a lot of trouble believing that Amazon would remove so many titles from its catalogue in the blink of an eye.
Amazon didn't make a big, or really any, announcement about pulling the books. The Macmillan books just suddenly disappeared. It seems, though, that Macmillan was prepared for this move. The publishing company shot back with a letter (a paid advertisement in Saturday's Publishers Lunch), issued to its authors, illustrators and literary agents. It explained, from Macmillan's point of view, why this had happened and the publishing agreeement that Macmillian wanted.
Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books. We clearly do not agree on how to get there. Meanwhile, the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view. We hold our view equally strongly. I hope you agree with us.
This dispute between Amazon and Macmillan, unsurprisingly, set off a flurry of commentary online -- on both sides of the conflict. Some applauded Amazon's attempts to keep prices low. Others applauded Macmillan, saying that low e-book prices are bad for authors. April Hamilton, an indie author, suggested that authors who were cheering Macmillan were backing the wrong horse.
Macmillan authors are rejoicing, and I’m shaking my head. Would musicians cheer a decision on the part of their labels to raise the price of their music on iTunes by 43%? I think not. Yet despite the fact that their books will cost [up to] 43% more than other Kindle bestsellers, and their royalty on those sales won’t be even one cent higher, the Macmillan author “victory” dance continues apace on the interwebz.
The author and royalty discussions were just one aspect of this. Conversations about digital rights management (DRM) and e-book pricing also popped up. Suzanne talks about why she wants books without DRM, so it doesn't really matter to her what Amazon and Macmillan charge for e-books.
I will buy a non-DRM'd book before I buy a DRM'd book, other things being equal. This is because I am already on my second e-book reader, my first having broken after a few months, and when I replaced Reader 1 with Reader 2 I found that all my DRM'd books for Reader 1 were locked and inaccessible on Reader 2.
Now, I'm not a huge fan of DRM, and I'd generally be happy to see it go the way of the dodo. I'm not quite as hard-line as Suzanne, and I'll still buy some books that have DRM on them. I have a price point though, and like the Story Siren, I'm not likely to pay $15 for an e-book. The reason is quite simple -- I very rarely pay more than $15 for even a trade paperback, and I can do pretty much anything I want with the book when it's in that format. I can loan it to friends. I can display it. I could cut it up and use it for art if I were so inclined. With an e-book I -- and only I -- can read it, unless I want to loan my friend the device I have downloaded it on. When I buy an e-book, I'm not really buying a book, I'm just leasing it. Why would I pay more for
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