“Neither readers nor writers benefit from the books are taken hostage,” they wrote in an open letter on the weekend. They criticized that Amazon had about the delivery of printed books slowed in the confrontation with the publisher Hachette and assumed no pre-orders. The Internet retailer wants to impose lower prices for digital books.
Among the signatories of the written by bestselling author Douglas Preston protest letter, there are also names of other well-known writers such as David Baldacci, Lincoln Child and Suzanne Collins. They called on the reader, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to say the opinion by e-mail. Amazon contrary to his own promise to think primarily of customers by the conflict will be played with Hachette on the back of the reader
Amazon:. Become
Amazon books have cheaper countered the thrust of the author with its own open letter. It states, among other things, literature must be cheaper because they stand with many other media in the competition. “Books compete with mobile games, television, movies, facebook, blogs, free news websites and more.”
The company also reiterated previous calculations, which, with lower e-book prices as 9 $ 99 a lot more books would be sold as such at $ 14.99, so that writers and publishers would earn even more in the end.
Unhappy Orwell quote in the Amazon letter
Amazon also defended the much-criticized massive pressure on Hachette. The publisher had brick for three months in the negotiations, and only grudgingly dealt with the Amazon-arguments, “as we took measures to reduce the sales of their titles in our store.” Amazon have proposed that, to compensate for the loss of the authors for the duration of the dispute – Hachette but this was rejected. Readers were called in return, to send e-mails to the Hachette’s CEO.
In an attempt to draw historical parallels, Amazon also wrote, once had the famous author George Orwell (“1984″) called upon to prohibit pocket books. However, from the context of the quote rather clear that Orwell had noted quite the opposite to the price advantage of the then new pocket books of the Penguin publishing: you would offer as much value for their money, that other publishers would actually ally contrast
In Germany, a similar conflict smolders
Amazon had set early on digital books and initially dominated with prices at $ 9.99 Business in the United States. U.S. publishers took advantage of the launch of Apple’s e-book store on the iPad tablet to enforce a model patterned after the German book price fixing, in which they can dictate the price and not the dealer.
After the intervention of U.S. authorities this procedure has been tilted, and Amazon may at wholesale price relate the books to publishers again. Hachette Holds Steady in negotiations for a new e-book deal with the required Amazon lower price at $ 9.99.
A similar dispute over the price of e-books there are in Germany. The Association of German Book Trade complained to the Federal Cartel Office via the online retailer. Amazon rejected the allegation to delay the delivery of printed books from the publishing group Bonnier (Ullstein, Piper, Carlsen) in the course of negotiations.
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