Amazon eBook prices look set to skyrocket

by Stevie Smith - Feb 5 2010, 18:15

The $9.99 USD price point attached to Amazon’s eBook publications could soon be the cheaper marketplace exception to an otherwise inflated price rule following news that yet another prominent publishing house has revealed a desire to set its own prices via the online retailer.

More pointedly, Hachette Book Group chief executive officer David Young has commented in a staff email that adopting an agency model of up to $14.99 USD will enable the publisher “to make pricing decisions that are rational and reflect the value of our authors’ works.”

In an excerpt of the staff mail originally posted at Media Bistro, Young also said that without such investment in its authors, “the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer.”

News of Hachette’s push to dictate digital download prices on Amazon comes hot on the heels of a similar move made against the retailer by Macmillan, which resulted in Amazon temporarily pulling all Macmillan publications (both digital and print) before eventually caving and handing over pricing control.

According to an earnings call transcript posted by Seeking Alpha, News Corp’s Harper Collins could be next in line to strike against the $9.99 USD pricing model after parent company boss Rupert Murdoch apparently expressed a dislike for Amazon’s set structuring.

It’s perhaps no surprise to see the above publishers piling pressure on Amazon after all three last week aligned themselves with the iPad’s accompanying iBooks Store after Apple announced that supporting publishers were free to set their own prices in return for handing over a 30 percent cut of sales.

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