Amazon's "Kindle Team"released statement Sunday (1/31/10) lamenting the monopoly Macmillan has over their titles and speaks of their "mission."
Publishers Lunch (subscription edition) reports "that Macmillan CEO John Sargent has commented on what happens next between the publisher and Amazon, a first answer to the what kind of timeline "ultimately" means for the restoration of buy buttons:
'We are in discussions with Amazon on how best to resolve our differences. They are now, have been, and I suspect always will be one of our most valued customers.'"
Publishers Lunch (subscription edition) also reports: "Before Amazon posted their announcement about their intention to give in to Macmillan's new terms, we were working on this piece. Even when Amazon removed buy buttons from Macmillan's trade division titles, they kept selling books from Macmillan's Palgrave line. Primarily a scholarly publisher, in recent years Palgrave has also expanded its trade books.
Not only did the buy buttons stay active for the Palgrave trade titles, for those new releases with Kindle editions, Amazon was already selling the ebook versions for the "needlessly high" as they would put it price $15 in many cases.
As we have written many times before, while Amazon creates the impression that all new releases and hardcovers are available in ebook for $9.99 or less, about 30 percent of their offerings have consistently listed above that price point.
(Amazon's policy about Macmillan's educational lines were uneven; WH Freeman and Bedford titles we checked were not available, while some Hayden-McNeil titles were.)"
The New York Times suggests that Amazon blinked. The story is far from over.
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