AMAZON BACK DOWN AGAIN OVER BOOK PRICING

The price of electronic books is going up. Just days before the release of the iPad. Amazon.com gave two major publishers permission to raise the price of their eBooks for Kindle readers. The agreements with Simon & Schuster and Harper-Collins give the publishers the ability to break from Amazon's policy of holding new titles to a price of $9.99.

Under the terms of the agreement, eBooks from Simon & Schuster and Harper-Collins can now be sold for $12.99 or $14.99. The agreement is similar to the deal Apple has made with publishers. Although Amazon.com sought to keep the price of eBooks low, publishers have argued that digital versions were worth more than Amazon allowed them to charge. Thanks to competition from various eReaders in the market, publishers are now able to dictate their own terms.

Whilst it is good that Amazon not being able to dictate it does worry me that publishers will charge too much for eBooks which could encourage cash strapped readers to download titles illegally.