Who Really Screwed Up, Amazon or Macmillan?

Posted February 1, 2010 by Holly in Discussions | 8 Comments

Earlier this year I blogged about Why I Buy From Amazon.com despite all the nastiness floating around about them and their business practices. What it comes down to for me is convenience. I’m willing to buy from Amazon because they offer me what I need at a reasonable price with no shipping charges. So even though they screw with reviewers and have system glitches and are a big bad evil corporation, I still buy from them. Because the bottom line for me is, well, me. To quote my post from earlier this year:

I don’t care that Amazon is “taking over the world”. What I care about is getting the books I love at a reasonable price in the least amount of time possible.

For those of you not in the know about the latest SNAFU, here’s a quick breakdown of what happened:

Amazon and Macmillan are having a disagreement about ebooks and pricing. Amazon wants to continue to offer new hardcover bestsellers at $9.99 but Macmillan doesn’t want Amazon to discount their books. Amazon refuses to budge, so Macmillan refuses to allow them Kindle rights. In a power play, Amazon then refuses to sell any Macmillan books. At all. If you looked over the last day or two, no Macmillan books – including Tor and St. Martin’s Press – have a buy link at Amazon, unless it was through a third-party seller.

This is where Amazon screwed up. By taking away my ability to buy, they’ve now alienated me, the consumer. I can no longer buy the books I want in a convenient, reasonably priced manner.

But isn’t Macmillan just as guilty? By trying to force me to pay so much for an ebook, aren’t they also alienating me? I’ve been lamenting their pricing on ebooks for some time now, as I just don’t understand it. Why would I want to pay $14.00 for an ebook when the print book is $7.99? And what exactly do they hope to accomplish by pricing ebooks the way they do? Are they really that opposed to ebooks? Isn’t that rather shortsighted of them?

Personally I don’t believe Amazon should have the right to dictate the pricing of books. The $9.99 bestsellers has been a point of contention with many and I’m not sure which side of the line I fall on. I will say it makes me nervous to see one company with that much power. But it makes me just as nervous that Macmillan refuses to see that readers want ebooks, and at a reduced price. I can’t hold an ebook, lend it to a friend, transfer it or – in the case of Kindle books – own the rights to it, so why would I want to pay twice the mass market paperback price for one?

So who really screwed up? It seems to me a good share of the blame needs to land on both parties.


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8 responses to “Who Really Screwed Up, Amazon or Macmillan?

  1. Excellent comment! And thank you for visiting my blog and sharing your enthusiasm for reading. I also appreciate the opportunity to be a guest reviewer. It has started me to reading more now than I have for a long time. Most of the reading I have done in the past has been for professional enrichment. Nice to do lots of reading just for me. I appreciate your comments about the whole matter of the publishing business — and about using some of these services that seem to be participants in these “set-to’s”. I use Amazon lots and lots — mostly I buy used books there and have for a long time. It is indeed about convenience as well as trying to find the book I need/want in order to get the best price. I hope that some of these difficulties can be worked out. I get really tired of the provincialism and territorialism.

  2. As a Kindle reader, I appreciate them trying to keep the lower prices. Unless I’m wrong, there are no Kindle books over $9.99.

    That said, I think it’s crap that they pulled all of Macmillan titles. Not very good business, that.

  3. I agree both sides messed up but I think it was on Scott Westerfeld’s post I saw that another option Macmillan offered was to sell ebooks at a lower price but delayed so as not to cannibalize the hardback sales. They compared this to how there is a delay in the paperback release as well.

    I’m all about the lower price but I can also see the publisher’s point of view of not wanting to lose that margin of profit.

  4. Wendy

    Thank you! Seriously, THANK YOU! Now I don’t feel like a lazy s.o.b. for not posting on this, because you said everything I was going to.

    Macmillan’s ebook pricing policy is f*cked up – but Amazon pissed me right off by pulling the Buy Now links on the PRINT titles as well. Words fail to describe how much that ticked me off.

    I think the lesson learned in this whole debacle is that readers shouldn’t put all their book buying eggs in one basket (hence, why I don’t own a Kindle). It’s always good to have other options. Says me.

  5. Seneca

    I hate Amazon. There are other reasons besides this one for me to boycott them. I’ve not purchased from them in over 2 years, and I wont ever again.
    If hell froze over and Amazon was the ONLY source for books, I would just stop reading.

    Oh, and I hope that the powers that be at Macmillan all develop crotch rot.

  6. I’m torn on this issue also. I want to buy affordable products, such as books, but the way Amazon looked like a bully and punished all of Macmillan by stopping consumers from buying all their products, put a bad taste in my mouth. It is scary because Amazon is trying to take over everything, and that’s not good.

    But, on the other side of things, I refuse to pay over $10 for an ebook. I’ll just buy the actual book then. Macmillan needs to evolve and change with the times, or they will be extinct.

  7. Seneca

    Gah! I thought Scoot Westerfeld was reader friendly–I guess not.
    Delay e-book release? I think not!
    Some publishers already do that, it’s maddening.

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