As news broke last night that Hachette Book Group USA will transition to an agency model for eBook pricing, the literary blogosphere exploded with commentary. Everyone is waiting to see how Amazon (AMZN) will respond to the news–they criticized Macmillan’s agency model move in a letter to customers last week.
UPDATED: No response, as of this 3:54 writing. Hachette has joined Macmillan’s battle against Amazon for more control over eBook prices, but Amazon still has not reactivated the buttons that allow customers to directly buy Macmillan books from the online retailer. You can check this morning by following this Amazon link to “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right,” the subject of a dramatic NY Times ad yesterday.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Reader Falconesse tweeted: “Pull the buttons from Twilight, Amazon, I dare you.” More reader comments follow after the jump.
Here’s more coverage of this long, strange week: Macmillan received a supportive standing ovation at an industry program yesterday. GalleyCat was interviewed about the future of $9.99 eBooks. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has dipped his toe into the eBook pricing debate. Macmillan author John Scalzi has rejected boycott and urged readers to buy books instead. Meanwhile, some Amazon customers continue to boycott Kindle books priced higher than $9.99. As of this writing, 1,724 different comments have been posted in response to Amazon’s note to customers about the price war.
JuanitaCR wrote: “$9.99 is my max. It is electronic. You don’t have to pay for paper, ink, physical transport, physical employees to take care of all the previously mentioned … But I guess if wanting to keep your publishing business afloat was top of your list over making a larger profit then you would care.”
Reader Kayla Finley wrote: “I can’t believe how short sighted and selfish people are being … Authors and editors pour their work into these titles and the publisher represents them. If you’re paying $10 for something that an author- an artist- puts their heart into, they’re not going to get paid what they deserve. Quit being selfish.”
One reader wrote in via Facebook: “This is the second letter from a publisher (the other being Macmillan) expressing to authors and agents that they expect to make less money on ebooks, and that they are still committed to the broken model of the print marketplace. Translation: your royalty checks will be smaller, advances smaller or nonexistent, and you, author, will be expected to subsidize the transition. The parallels to how newspapers used the same line when first launching their web initiatives are so similar I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
