Today the News Corp. CEO hinted that HarperCollins will join Macmillan in negotiating higher eBook prices.
UPDATE: As the fifth full day of the standoff begins, many Macmillan books are still not available for direct sale on Amazon (as of this 7:45 a.m. EST writing).
All Things Digital reporter Peter Kafka has been liveblogging an interview with Rupert Murdoch about News Corp.’s fourth quarter earnings this afternoon. The company owns HarperCollins, so talk turned to eBook pricing.
Here’s an intriguing quote from Murdoch: “We don’t like the Amazon model of $9.99 … we think it really devalues books and hurts all the retailers of hardcover books. We’re not against electronic books, on the contrary, we like them very much, lower costs to us, but we want some room to manuever … And now Amazon willing to sit down with us again.”
Meanwhile, the NY Times reports that “some Macmillan books were creeping back” for direct sale on Amazon’s website. You can test the availability by following links to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War or William Poundstone’s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value. (Via Sarah Weinman)
