Seattle – Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) has caved on its policy of setting a
standard $9.99 price point for e-books, signing deals with CBS’ (NYSE: CBS) Simon &
Schuster and News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) HarperCollins that will let publishers set prices for
new releases at between $12.99 and $14.99, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A representative from Sony (NYSE: SNE)
separately told BusinessWeek that, in addition to Simon & Schuster and
HarperCollins, publishing houses Macmillan, Hachette and Penguin will also
begin setting their own e-book prices.
Both reports cited Apple’s (NASD: AAPL) recent e-book
deals with publishers for the iPad, which have reportedly included terms
allowing publishers to set prices.
While publishers will be able to raise
prices, some newer titles and many library e-book titles will continue to sell
for $9.99, the reports said.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/v74ox
(BusinessWeek)
http://snipurl.com/v74pb
(WSJ)
While supply and demand will be the rule of the day, if the price goes above $9.99, I’ll be back to buying paper used copies and goodwill copies for much much less. Currently I spend $30 to $40 a month on E-books… but when they go higher than my perceived value… it’s over.
I wouldnt mind spending a bit more if I could share with family and/or friends like I do with hardbacks and pocketbooks. A $10 used LOST SYMBOL gets a lot of mileage around the house. But with Kindle, I’m reading all the time and it’s not convenient to give them my Kindle on loan. It would be better to be able to dump to my computer or flash drive and share.