Amazon will yield to Macmillan’s requirements and raise the price of the electronic versions of the publisher’s books available for the Kindle.
The company announced the decision yesterday, although it made a point of saying that it considers the value of $ 14.99 (about 10.78 euros) that the publisher demands to be marketed «unnecessarily high» ebooks – which the company usually sells for $ 9.99 (the equivalent of 7.18 euros).
Macmillan, and other publishers, are said to have asked Amazon to raise the selling prices of its digital books, to which Amazon officials responded that any amount exceeding $ 9.99 was too high.
After a period in which it suspended the sale of Macmillan books on its website, Amazon will yield and charge values ​​between 12.99 and 14.99 dollars for bestsellers from the publisher. At the origin of the decision will be the position occupied by Macmillan in the market, being characterized as «one of the six major» publishers in the USA.
Amazon says that with the temporary cessation of distribution of the works through its website, it expressed its «serious disagreement» with the publisher’s intentions, but will nevertheless have to give in and accept its terms since Macmillan has a monopoly about the books that it publishes and that Amazon wants to continue selling, even at prices that it considers inappropriate.
The company added that it will now be up to readers to decide whether they are willing to pay the prices requested for the digital version of a bestseller and that he does not believe that the remaining «big» publishers decide to follow the same path as Macmillan.
