View Single Post
  #32  
Old 01-03-2011, 12:50 AM
AndyKoh's Avatar
AndyKoh AndyKoh is offline
Founder, PetFinder.my
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Posts: 1,347
Rep Power: 10
AndyKoh has disabled reputation
Default Re: Kindle & e-Book Reader Review

Thanks for sharing the thread, Simon.

I remebered coming across articles where publishers claimed that they were pressured by Amazon to reduce their selling prices. MacMillan also had a price dispute with Amazon last year where some of their books were abruptly pulled from Amazon:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/te...azon.html?_r=1

I believe Amazon later succumbed to MacMillan's demands of setting higher prices, because it's a large publisher with strong bargaining power.

In any case, I think ebook prices would definitely be heading for a downward spiral from now, because of the competitive digital market. Most importantly, these online bookstores have granted independent authors and indie publishers an equal playground to effectively tap on the vast market. This would eventually eliminate a lot of middle tiers and distributors from the brick and mortar world, resulting in a lot of cost savings. The same thing happened to the music industry with the introduction of MP3 format and players, and I think the e-Reader would serve as the catalyst for the book industry.

Not to forget that ebooks also help save papers and environment. 99% of my books are collecting cobwebs and wasting storage space now haha, but I am somehow still a bit attached to give them away. Guess part of me is still old-school. But I wouldn't hesitate to delete a finished ebook from my Kindle, knowing well that a copy of it still lies in my PC, and I can always re-download purchased books from Amazon.
Reply With Quote