Macmillan books gone from Amazon.com, Steve Jobs grins wryly from his throne of golden iPads
By Paul Miller 
posted January 30th 2010 1:10PM
posted January 30th 2010 1:10PM
We hate to iPad-ify the news so bluntly (matching lower back tattoos aside), but the timing of this one is uncanny. Mere days after Apple's announcement of a deal with Macmillan for its new iBooks store, and right after a shakycam video of Steve Jobs predicting some publishers would be pulling books from the Kindle due to a lack of satisfaction with Amazon's prices, Macmillan's books have mysteriously disappeared from Amazon.com. Even the paper ones, like the new Wheel Of Time book, pictured to the right. You can of course buy books from the other retailers that Amazon's systems support (along with Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca), but there's no getting a Macmillan publication straight from Amazon.com. Without a peep about the issue from Amazon or Macmillan, it's easy to see this as some sort of wild glitch -- after all, what could possibly cause such a rift between these two companies to end sales of all Macmillan books, instead of just the e-books for Kindle? Hopefully we find out soon, before our heads implode conspiratorially.
@Chaos Theory
Well, while it would be nice to win your bet- I'd have to accept all of your "non apple products." I spent most of my years with Microsoft- now that I've experienced Apple, I can say, I enjoy using my Apple computer and I ENDURE using my windows computer. So- I'll win the bet, but you can keep your stuff.
im probably gonna never bother buying an ereader simply because because i prefer having a nice solid book to read with real paper, i would never stare at a bright LED screen to read from that's ridiculous.
@JustThatNerdyGuy *just one because :P
We have here more eveidence of the revolution n damage that will occur. This ipad has such great desirability. Most bloggers don't understand that in 30 days it will be the highest selling tablet in American history. The first true shelf tablet available in USA. Will sell at apple store. AT&T store target walmart bestbuy. Only one company has the balls to bring this to our hands. N that's apple. Agree?
iPad + LiveScribe
The old apple moto, if you can't beat em ban em...or in this case monopolize em!
i could probably think of myself as a "veteran" at looking at lcd monitors (logged about 3000 hours on different online games for 2008, and that's just the ones that kept track) and i'll vouch to the fact that my eyes and head hurt after an hour or so of looking at straight text.
With all of this talk, The Courier really needs to come out. Now that would be good for college students, even in concept. Its better.
@AlienSix Of course Courier looks good in concept, that is all it is. Most concept cars get watered down and destroyed by the time they make it market. I expect nothing less from Courier should it ever see fruition. I, however, doubt that Microsoft could pull off ANYTHING close to what the concept shows. Kudos to the concept artists who came up with it though. Microsoft is not the creative company, they're the suits, Apple is the creative company.
@KillTheApex
@KillTheApex "Microsoft is not the creative company, they're the suits, Apple is the creative company"
Oh that same "creative company" who released that thing, what was that thing, iPad I think it was, the same "creative" company who tried to pass off a "rehash and recycle" as being "magical and innovative." Yeah if you consider leftovers creative than so be it. If Apple could have put out half of all the hype that surrounded the iPad in to the iPad, then maybe people could have actually been excited about it. Yet once again its the, "I have to do what Jobs wants me to do" way of thinking.
Hey the Courier might just be a concept and god forbid if Microsoft attempts to do anything that might actually be "cool". I'll bet you any amount of money that if and when the Courier comes to market it wont be half the failure this "rehash and recycle" was.
@AlienSix It may seem like a rehash right now to everyone but you can trust that the iPad will do extremely well. The iPad is the future of computing. Mark my words. We are finally shaking the legacy of mice and keyboards and interacting directly with the machines instead of through a proxy. It is just a more natural way of interacting and I, for one, welcome it.
Hmm... I think Engadget knows that I keep checking their website all the time now, just to see how absurd their iPad coverage can be. I keep getting surprised with a never ending vomit of iPad. What is wrong with you guys!?
omg new wheel of time!!!!
Lol
This is garbage, so Apple will throw money at all the book publishers to leave amazon, I guess thats the only way the iTampon can be successful
That's a pretty big sacrifice for MacMillan to be making. Giving up all their paper and digital sales on Amazon just for the right to sell 1/1,000th of the books on the iPad?
Congratulations Apple fanboys. I hope you're happy that you're causing a market wide rise in pricing for e-books. I suppose Jobs doesn't care because he doesn't think anyone else reads and I doubt he does either.
iPad, revolutionary new features like iStrain and iNflated book prices!
love the wheel of time. anyone who hasn't read the series by robert jordan should really try it out. if your into LOTR or Harry Potter, this is for you (only WOT is better!)
If the hardcopy versions are gone, it's more likely either a glitch or Amazong punishing Macmillan -- not the other way around.
Apple's getting the blame here but the Wheel of Time series is now available for the Nook, something that Kindle never had, so maybe B&N has something to do with it.
http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=EBOOK&WRD=wheel+of+time+series&box=wheel&pos=1
Amazon is starting to become like China. Pull books from a publisher just because of a business disagreement? I'm going to take my money elsewhere from now on. No need for this censorship crap from Amazon.
@csiro
Except amazon is trying to keep prices down... They pulled the books because they didn't want to see at the price the publisher wanted.
@csiro you're right. Amazon should just raise the prices on all their books. They are assholes for trying to keep prices down so consumers can get more for their money. They have some nerve!
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free/
Thats from a tweet from tor books.
This is a pretty jarring thing to happen and seems like it should be illegal, I've gone to look at the Amazon website and sure enough, no more Macmillan books. That's completely absurd. I love my Apple products, I love my Kindle and I feel nothing but anger to think that there could be some sort of exclusivity deal going down which takes Macmillian or any other books from my being able to buy them at Amazon in favor of Apple. This seems like those times that some cable provider is fighting with some network about whether to carry and how much to charge. The losers end up being us the consumers. Get it fixed Apple/Amazon/Macmillian!
$10 on amazon, it is estimated that publishers take between $4-5. Given a 70% retain, publishers will get about twice that from Apple only on "Hardcover Bestsellers" and that assumes that they choose to price them at $15. So that is BEST case and part of that comes from still sacrificing revenue where they cant get all the hardcover money due to the lag.
Book lovers prefer i-Ink, the attachment rate for books will be better on a dedicated device until dedicated devices are extinct and/or the experience becomes better on the iPad. So, while publishers may be better off with the larger audience an iPad *could* provide, they need to give readers a compelling reason to switch devices, reading lovers who have a Kindle just wont with the exception of wanting the latest release hardcover best sellers, and as Steve Jobs people just don't read. What he meant was, "our customers don't read anymore" and they haven't done enough to convince book readers to switch devices. I even presume that $15 isn't a large enough savings to stay apart from a hardcover, though the convenience and some features might make that somewhat desirable, but that's not the same thing. Book lovers who collect hardcovers can find comparable prices for a book that will last more than a lifetime without DRM and ability to share (something booklovers love to do).
If this is the only publisher to make a move like this, they will fail because 1 publisher isn't ever going to be enough to make anyone switch devices, especially to one that is more costly with a worse experience. It's much easier to and more rewarding to just go and buy those few books from the store than to buy an ipad for a new marketplace.
Book sales are down year over year.
This is just like the music industry that didn't have a clue and priced themselves out of lot's of people's purchase decisions.
Kindle is a great idea and device. $10 is the magic number, not $15. Fail for publishers that don't stay with $10.