Author John Grisham bashed Amazon and Walmart in a Today Show appearance, criticizing how the companies have marked down books and made the market more difficult for “aspiring writers.”
As we reported, Walmart (WMT) recently slashed book prices online, slashing the cover price of the top 10 pre-selling titles to $10 apiece–sweetening the deal with free shipping. This move touched off a book discounting war in between Amazon.com (AMZN), Walmart, and finally, Target (TGT). At one point, prices sank below $9 for a new hardcover.
Here’s more from Grisham (pictured, via), from the article: “[The price] enables me to make a royalty, the publisher to make a profit and the bookstore to make a profit … If a new book is worth $9, we have seriously devalued that book … It’s a free market–there’s no legal case … I’m not itching to sue Amazon or Wal-Mart…they sell a lot of books. But the future is very uncertain with books.”