Amazon Announces That Ultimately “We Will Have To Capitulate” to Macmillan

In a stark contrast to Macmillan’s very high-profile corporate response to the de-listing of all of the publisher’s titles from their store, Amazon posted a short note on the Kindle forums yesterday with their side of the story:

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.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles…

Emphasis mine. The Kindle Team, authors of the post, also expressed their hope that other publishers would not follow Macmillan’s lead and “we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.” The reason Amazon is in a position to know this is that it’s one of the stipulations for publishing titles to Kindle through the Digital Text Platform, which is mainly utilized by indie presses and individual authors. Prices for DTP books must be between $2.99 and $9.99.

It seems from this limited statement that Amazon is attempting to gain favor with authors (who have, over the weekend, expressed their severe displeasure for the bookseller’s move) with the talk of “opportunity” for them and the dig at Macmillan for having a monopoly on its titles. However, that particular part of the statement doesn’t make sense. Of course Macmillan is the only publisher of its own books, just as Amazon is the only seller of the Kindle.

Though the statement makes it seem as though the conflict is over for now, Macmillan books have not yet returned to Amazon’s virtual shelves.