Hachette Book Group Jumps On Board With Apple's iBook Pricing Scheme

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In an e-mail to all literary agents they have dealings with, the Hachette Book Group (one of the “Big Six” publishers, and one that has signed to provide books for the iPad’s iBooks store) confirmed that they would prefer the ‘agency model’ of pricing schemes. In layman’s terms, they want to charge $14.99 versus Amazon’s $9.99.

Macmillan Books was the first to put pressure on Amazon over the store’s $9.99 pricing. Later, HarperCollins joined in, and now, the Hachette Book Group has voiced their opinion.

David Young said in the letter to the literary agents that he feels that the agency model of pricing (aka, $14.99) will better “reflect the value of our author’s works,” and that they can “continue to invest in and nurture authors’ careers.”Remember that this was written for literary agents – representatives of authors, hence the angle on this being good for authors, which, it probably is, in the long run. Consumers? Not so much.

The Hachette letter did mention one thing, they believe this will be good for consumers, too. If they’re allowed to set their own price for eBooks, then they can assure that the new releases will be out the day the physical copy is out. (They presume, that under the Amazon model, they would only be able to allow an eBook to be published once its value had decreased to $9.99).

The Wall Street Journal speculates that since half of the ‘Big Six’ book publishing houses have decided to go to the ‘agency model’, that the other three (Penguin, Random House and Simon & Schuster) will fall in line and join in.