Digital Publishing
1 min read

Publishers killed off the digital edition, now they are working on eBooks

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The latest AAP report seems to show that major publishers are working to kill off the eBook. This will be hard to accomplish because while the big name publishers control an impressive share of the print book market, their hold on the digital book market is less firm thanks to Amazon and self-publishing.

eBook sales, the AAP reported, fell 18 percent for member publishers in the last report, and no one is confused as to the reason. Pricing.

The big publishers, the ones that worked for a brief time with Apple, have wanted to raise the price of eBooks all along. Amazon is now letting them do that, not out of a sense of justice, but in order to let the publishers inflict self-damage – at least as far as digital is concerned.

It is easy to see the two different pricing strategies being employed simply be going into Amazon’s Kindle store and seeing which books are $9.99 (or even higher) and which are much lower. Those that say “Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC” are priced inexpensively.

Of the top ten bestsellers, seven are sold by Amazon, three by a major publisher.

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