Amazon Caves to Macmilllan's eBook Price Hike

[JMcEntegart]

It was a busy and dramatic weekend for Amazon and Macmillan. The online etailer and publisher were caught up in a bitter price war with Macmillan trying to impose a $14.99 price for electronic versions of hardcover books.

Amazon Caves to Macmilllan's eBook Price Hike : Read more

 

[outlw6669]

Greedy bastards >.

 

[mrcmark]

Monopoly.

 

[Socnom]

lol. Ownership =/= Monopoly. That is like saying Amazon has a monopoly over their kindle ereader.

 

[TheCapulet]

Amazon should have stuck to it's guns.

 

[headscratcher]

I may pay that much for a digital book. Depends how badly I want to read it, but I usually wait for the paper-back pricing.

Amazon does have one thing going for them, they do understand customer service, IMO.

 

[pharge]

$14.99?... wasn't that the price S. Jobs said for the ebooks on iBook?... Guess the book publishers are taking advantages on the competetion on the eReader market.

sad.... that's what happen how a monoply suppier take advantages in a competive market....>_< ..

 

[dfusco]

(shrug> then I'll just keep down loading the audiobook torrents.

 

[gorehound]

Ebooks are losers all around.
1.full of DRM
2.no more real 1st editions
3.can not display your books in a library
4.can not resell them
5.no collectors value

I am so glad i will never buy one of these.and i do own around 1200 books.many are wonderful condition 1st editions.i sold one of my books one time and payed for a new 21" CRT Workstation monitor ofr around $500.
you think you will ever have a $500 sale on an ebook ???

 

[AMDnoob]

That's why I don't read books

 

[vicsrealms]

$15 dollars for a Hardcover E-BOOK?!!! WTH? How can you charge that much for a book thats nothing but e-paper? Its not like your actually publishing a physical copy of the book. I purchased a physical book for $7.99 at Amazon and the e-book is the same price. At what point do publishers and authors think that I am going to buy a file for $7.99 when I can get a nice physical copy for the same price. It might be nice at .99 cents each if you buy the actual book, as I would love to put them on a Kindle or a Sony e-book reader and carry a couple hundred books with me on a trip instead of lugging around a couple physical books. For now, at their current price I'm not buying.

 

[Guest]

gorehound, sure it's nice to have a library, but exactly how environmentally friendly is that? E-books, while not perfect, are a huge step toward saving the Earth.

 

[Guest]

Go capitalism, thank god we live in a country where competition exists. If at first u can't get a reseller to sell your product at a high premium, find one that will and fire the former. Consumer loses again.

 

[Ridik876]

I don't agree with a %150 price hike, but people need to stop trying to make a point that it's "nothing but data". I'm sure the DVD for Dragon Age: Origins is worth a few cents, but I was happy to pay $50 for it. (That's an analogy by the way.) And complaining about DRM? Are you saying physical books have less restriction? Well, I guess you could always just go to Kinko's.(That one is sarcasm)

But still, monopoly = bad.

 

[Ridik876]

[citation][nom]pharge[/nom]$14.99?... wasn't that the price S. Jobs said for the ebooks on iBook?... Guess the book publishers are taking advantages on the competetion on the eReader market. sad.... that's what happen how a monoply suppier take advantages in a competive market....>_< ..[/citation]

Interesting you should point that out...usually competition works to LOWER prices in a given market. But thanks to Apple fanboys who will pay anything for anything shiny and made by Apple, Macmillan can now turn around and say,"Well all those retards are going to pay $15 for their ebooks, so I guess that's now our price point too." (I foresee the same problem with the iPad...what the hell is Apple doing in the tampon business anyway?!)

 

[techguy378]

What's next? Are the record companies going to start charging $15 for an individual downloadable song? That's how ridiculous this is.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

It may or may not work. We'll just have to wait and see how it works out.

 

[anamaniac]

Hell, I went to the local book store and paid $60 for 8 books.
Not hardcover of course, but printing costs help determine the price.

$0.00001 in bandwidth costs vs. printing costs (unknown value)...
Bastards.
I'm also not going to pay $1.50 for a single damned song...

 

[MinskUK]

There is no passion or sense of ownership in possessing a file. It’s not like the current readers raise the experience either. Owning a book, CD, DVD, LP is more than just the content so charging more for the ‘soulless’ version is laughable.
They need to firmly understand that the electronic version is all about convenience as it offers nothing else for the senses. On this basis it has a fraction of the value and therefore should be priced accordingly.

 

[MinskUK]

There is no passion or sense of ownership in possessing a file. It’s not like the current readers raise the experience either. Owning a book, CD, DVD, LP is more than just the content so charging more for the ‘soulless’ version is laughable.

They need to firmly understand that the electronic version is all about convenience as it offers nothing else for the senses. On this basis it has a fraction of the value and therefore should be priced accordingly.