Goliath vs. Goliath

This week, one of the giants of the book industry faced off against the giant of the, well, everything industry. Macmillan vs. Amazon is a total conundrum for me because I like to rout for the underdog. Clearly, in this situation, there is no such dog. They are two over-dogs, barking at each other from either side of a chain link fence. There was a lot of dirt kicked around, both dogs showed their teeth, and Amazon even sunk its teeth in a little before realizing it was actually biting itself on the (proverbial) rear end.

When the dust finally settled, Amazon went limping home with its tail between its legs. Some people rejoiced. The headlines read “Victory for publishers everywhere!” But I am skeptical. Sure, if Macmillan makes a stink about something, Amazon is much more likely to respond then if Mom’n’Pop Publishing were to make the same case. However, just because Macmillan was able to wiggle their way out of the $9.99 price cap, doesn’t mean that we are free from the monopolizing hand of Amazon.

By raising the prices of e-books, consumers will be expecting more from the ebooks they buy. For publishers like Macmillan, this could pose a bit of a problem. First of all, Macmillan (unlike smaller publishers) has a huge backlist of titles that are not easily converted to digital content. Also, so far, it doesn’t seem like publishers really know what people want from their ebooks. I certainly hope that Macmillan has not bitten off more than it can chew. I also hope they can figure out a way to make people want to buy ebooks. People will not spend $14.99, or $9.99 for that matter, for poorly formatted, unreliable books.

Amazon needs to be careful the way they treat publishers. Even though Amazon has a lot of characteristics that make it like a publishers, I would venture that they still need the big dogs of publishing to make their business work. They need to be especially careful now that the “unicorn” has arrived and the apple bookstore is ready to open its digital doors.

I think there has to be an easy answer in here somewhere, I just don’t know what it is.