Book Publishing Report Newsletter

Macmillan’s CEO Jon Sargant made an important stand in January when he stood up to the $9.99 pricing scheme of Amazon. The e-tailer, obviously wanting to make an example of Macmillan, disabled the buy buttons from Macmillan’s titles, thinking the company would cave in.

Simba believes the stand was long overdue: Amazon had been selling Kindle editions of many books at a loss for over two years now; using the low prices as a hook to get consumers on board with the e-book reader.

The situation isn’t being helped when authors like Anne Rice, who have made their fortunes with print books and still have their print books on shelves all over the world, throw a low-priced title into the mix: last week Rice announced she’d re-release one of her old stories as a ‘Vook’ or ‘video book’ through the company that first made news late last year. Rice’s ‘Vook’ will sell for $6.99. Like Stephen King with his $3.99 Kindle-only edition of UR, Rice has publicity to gain and nothing to lose, but the low priced offerings from popular authors can sure have an effect.

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