Amazon Campaign on eBook Prices

As a rule, Amazon are the last people on earth you'd take morality advice over finance from, but that doesn't stop them spouting it.

Anyone who's signed up as an ebook seller through Amazon has recently received a fairly scathing attack on US publisher Hachette over the price of e-books.

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents — it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year... 

Fast forward to today, and it's the e-book's turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette — a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate — are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market — e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

You can read the full letter online, but the gist of it is:

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We'd like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us. 

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: 

Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com  

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com 

Please consider including these points:

• We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

• Lowering e-book prices will help — not hurt — the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.

• Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon's offers to take them out of the middle.

• Especially if you're an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

What are your thoughts?