Amazon/Apple war looming with publishers caught in the middle

The ebook war between Amazon and Apple is beginning to heat up, with Amazon insisting publishers agree to a list of demands that includes signing a 3 year contract and guaranteeing that no other book retailer will get a better deal. At the same time Apple’s terms for allowing those same publishers to sell ebooks in the upcoming iBookstore mandate that they not sell those same books anywhere else for a lower price. Amazon is the top ebook seller because of its $9.99 price point, which has since begun to deteriorate thanks to Macmillan’s insistence on raising the prices of its ebooks to between $12.99-$14.99. For a short time Amazon tried to play hard ball by removing the buy button from every single Macmillan paper and ebook title, but eventually gave in. Now it seems all publishers will find themselves caught in a tug of war between the online retail giant and Apple, and Apple probably has the upper hand because it lets them set their own prices. The publishing industry is still woefully ignorant about ebooks and sees them as some kind of threat instead of a blessing, convinced they hurt sales rather than increase them. Since I and everyone I know who owns an e-reader have actually found themselves buying MORE books since getting it than we did when we were only buying paper books, obviously they’re wrong.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks and months because it seems impossible for both Apple and Amazon to get what they want.

Read [NYTimes]