The Digital Reader

I just came across an interesting column published in the Naples, Florida local paper. It’s written by Ben Bova, author of such books as The Starcrossed and Cyberbooks.  Now if only he hadn’t gotten details wrong.

Amazon wanted to price the books it offers on Kindle so low that they could corner the market on electronic books. Macmillan countered that they couldn’t make a profit on books sold at such low prices.

Um, no. Macmillan was making a profit on the ebooks.  And I would argue that you are wrong about Amazon’s motive. They’re not trying to corner the market (which is impossible to do on the internet); they’re selling ebooks at the price that people want to pay.

Don’t believe me? Go check out Smashwords’ market data.

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