Amazon will now allow Macmillan to sell ebooks at “needlessly high” prices

The last we heard was that Amazon had halted sales of the Macmillan titles in the Kindle Store, but as you may have hoped or guessed that move was not going to last for long.

Basically, it seems as if Amazon has given in, and has decided to once again begin offering the Macmillan titles. Except to the disappointment of the customers, they are not going to return at the now customary price of $9.99. Instead they will return with prices ranging from $12.99 to $14.99.

Bottom line, it seems that Amazon has decided to leave it up to the customers and see if they are willing to pay the higher prices. Here is a copy of the announcement from the Amazon website…

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

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. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.

Read [Amazon] Via [The Consumerist]