(Reuters photo) Rupert Murdoch, CEO of NewsCorp, which also
owns publisher HarperCollins.
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Rupert Murdoch, news mogul and CEO of NewsCorp, owner of HarperCollins publishing, has now joined the fray against Amazon.com's business model, stating that, "We don't like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99. They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge. But I think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books."
Ebook pricing has been a source of irritation for the major online bookseller since the introduction of the Kindle. Ebooks are less expensive to produce than the hard cover or paperback counterparts and therefore command a lesser list price than those counterparts. Amazon--as well as all other booksellers, online or brick and mortar--purchase in sufficient qualities to command 50% discounts off the list pricing and then pass the savings on to the consumers by lowering prices well below the publishers suggested retail cost. Amazon and Walmart--also a big player in the saga--also sell other merchandise, such as housewares, clothing, jewelry, etc, which means that if they sell a title at a significant amount off the list, any loss can be compensated by sales of those other items.
But all parties agree that with the new Apple iPad and iBookstore entering the picture, sales of ebooks stand to quadruple over the coming twelve months; which could also precipitate a pricing war not unlike the recent hardcover releases of this past winter, when Amazon was once again in the hot seat. That time, the adversaries were Walmart, Target, and Sears. Murdoch's HarperCollins is now in negotiations with Apple over pricing their ebooks for the iPad, having signed a possible exclusivity agreement with the company.
Amazon has not yet issued a statement concerning this turn of events and still has not made Macmillan titles available for order except through third party sales.
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