Apparently all is not well in e-book land. In an unusual move, publisher Macmillan took out an ad in the Publishers Marketplace magazine protesting the tactics being used by Amazon regarding pricing. The issue is Macmillan is trying to raise prices to $15.00 and up, and Amazon is trying to lock the prices at $9.99 and up per title.
The negotiations have been going on for over a year, and finally came to a head on Friday when Amazon pretty much banned titles published by Macmillan by refusing to directly sell them. Macmillan took the fight public when he paid for an ad in the industry paper, the Publishers Lunch:
“Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.”
[via Mediabistro]
Update: Congrats, you all win the internet. The source material was someone unclear on exactly who wanted to raise the price, and who wanted to keep it the same.