Amazon Blinks in Macmillan Facedown: "We Will Have to Capitulate"

Boy, that didn't take long!

Remember the pinkie bet I made ten minutes ago? I wagered that once publishers' hands were untied from the $9.99 price ceiling on e-books we would see an increase in the royalty percentage paid by publishers to authors on e-book revenue. Well, I'm halfway there to winning it. Amazon's Kindle team has just released a statement accepting Macmillan's position even though disagreeing with it. The statement in part says:

"We will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books."

The Kindle spokesblog added that "We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan." Perhaps not, but they will now be encouraged to do so by Macmillan's stand. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this may be a defining moment in the history of the e-book industry.

Read the Kindle Team's full statement here.

Richard Curtis