Macmillan push Amazon to agreement

Macmillan has been victorious in its battle with Amazon over the price of e-books being sold for the Kindle device.

The online trader has been selling Macmillan titles for $9.99 (around £6.00) which the publisher felt was underpriced, insisting it should be between $12.99 and $14.99, bringing prices into line with hard copies of the same titles.

Amazon faces greater competition on the e-book market with the Apple iPad’s release and stated: “We will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly on their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at high prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.”

Macmillan insists that the disagreement is about “the long term viability and stability of the digital book market” and not “short-term profitability”.

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