Amazon Yanks Macmillan Books Over Pricing

Raise your hand if you didn’t see this coming. Amazon has pulled the books of one of the largest publishers in the US, Macmillan, from its virtual shelves. The reason? Pricing of e-books. Strangely enough, Macmillan is one of the publishers slated to offer books on the new iBooks store for the iPad. What an amazing coincidence!

I’ve talked to a person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute who says the disappearance is the result of a disagreement between Amazon.com and book publishers that has been brewing for the last year. Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books, said this person.

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