Amazon To Increase Ebook Price Following Threats By Macmillan

In an announcement posted on its website, Amazon.com, the online retail giant, has reported that the company has agreed to sell Macmillan E-books at a higher price instead of the standard $9.99.

The Amazon Kindle Team wrote on the Kindle community blog that “Macmillan, one of the big six publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.”

This announcement from the online retail heavyweight comes two days after it stopped selling Macmillan book titles for its Kindle e-book reader format following a dispute over the e-book pricing strategy.

According to the new agreement between Amazon and Macmillan, the book publishing giant will be able to set the price of the e-books individually, with new releases being priced anywhere between $12.99 and $14.99.

In addition to the revised pricing scheme, the revenue sharing ratio will be set 70:30 in favor of the publisher.

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However, with publishers calling the shots, many analysts believe that Steve Jobs will have a fair chance of competing with Amazon, which has managed to skim the lucrative e-book market long before Apple arrived on the scene with its very own tablet device, called iPad, which doubles-up as an interactive e-book reader.