Amazon removes Macmillan titles

Brad Stone and Motoko Rich report in the New York Times

Looks like this is the first casualty following the announcement of the iPad by Apple Computers: Amazon.com has withdrawn all Macmillan titles from its online bookstore in what looks like the beginnings of a long drawn out book war. This is a war that has been waiting to be declared for a long time, ever since the release of the Kindle a year ago and the subsequent pricing of Amazon's 'hardback' e-books at USD9.99. Publishers have been strongly objecting to this pricing by Amazon for a long time (although the online bookshop actually makes a loss on each sale and not the publishers) on grounds that such pricing devalues books. (Macmillan titles can still, however, be purchased from third-party sellers.)

Macmillan's imprints include Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press and Henry Holt. Books withdrawn include A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich.

Macmillan are one of the publishers that have signed with Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet. Apple will allow publishers to set their own prices for e-books, which is expected to be between USD12.99 and USD14.99 for most fiction and general non-fiction titles. The discount structure is also believed to be better, with Apple offering 70% to the publishers against 50% by Amazon.

It will be interesting to see how this one develops.

Latest: Amazon concedes this round with the following statement (though they have yet to restore the buy buttons):

"We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles ... We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books."

Exactly. All publishers have monopolies over their titles. That's why books are not like other commodities and they cannot be sold supermarket style. That's why a book is not a shoe.

New York Times