Thursday, February 23, 2012

Amazon Drops Thousands Of Ebooks From Kindle Store.

Amazon removed more than 4000 e-books from its Kindle Store yesterday, punctuating a spat with the Independent Publishers Group. Amazon wants to sell ebooks for lower prices than publishers have liked. When IPG refused their newest terms, Amazon responded with the book drop


Amazon is under pressure from Wall Street to improve its anemic margins. At the same time, it is committed to selling e-books as cheaply as possible as a way to preserve the dominance of its Kindle devices.

When the Kindle contract for one of the country’s largest book distributors, the Independent Publishers Group, came up for renewal, Amazon saw a chance to gain some ground at I.P.G.’s expense.

“They decided they wanted me to change my terms,” said Mark Suchomel, president of the Chicago-based I.P.G. “It wasn’t reasonable. There’s only so far we can go.”

Full story and extended commentary here>

No comments: