Wall Street Journal
Amazon.com has come to agreements with two more major publishers to end “heavy discounting” on bestselling e-books and bring its price structure in line with what Apple is offering in its new iPad iBookstore. Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reports in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Publishers are the latest to renegotiate with Amazon. “Under what’s called the agency pricing model, some new best sellers will be priced at $9.99 but most will be priced at $12.99 to $14.99.”
Trachtenberg notes that Apple, which launches its new iPad on Saturday, has agreements with five of six major publishers to sell their e-books. The holdout is Random House, owned by Bertelsmann AG. Bertelsmann AG also owns a stake in German publisher Gruner + Jahr, which last week announced a deal to publish its content on an iPad competitor, the WePad.
