Our peaceful publishing Saturday was interrupted by a report from the NY Times about Macmillan and Amazon (AMZN). Here is the paragraph that rocked the publishing world: “Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books, said this person, who did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.”
No matter how this situation is sorted out, publishers will soon have to convince another constituency: Amazon customers. We reported today that scores of Amazon customers are urging others to boycott books priced over $9.99.
Many other outlets have covered this strange affair, including: the AP and Publishers Weekly and BoingBoing and VentureBeat and John Scalzi and Munsey’s the LA Times and MediaMemo and Mashable.
Requests for comment have not been returned, but Macmillan books are still not available directly from Amazon, as you can see by following links to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War or William Poundstone’s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value. Tune in tomorrow for any new developments.
