I Hate to Say I Told You So, But . . .
Published February 20th, 2010 | 
Mr. Big Time Publisher gets out of bed, gives himself a good phisoderm scrub — showers, shits, shaves, then goes downstairs to eat a grapefruit and drink a steaming cup of coffee while he reads his New York Times. Imagine the look on his face when he reads this headline:
Apple’s Prices for E-Books May Be Lower Than Expected
Gee, who didn’t see that one coming? Seriously. I hate to say I told you so, but . . . well, actually, I LOVE to say I told you so. Didn’t I say it didn’t make sense to trust Apple? Didn’t I say one should pick one’s battles when fighting with Amazon? Now one can only speculate as to why Apple has changed its tune on eBook pricing. My own theory is that the overall early response to their iPad was far less than they’d hoped with plenty of negative reviews and surveys suggesting that their new toy might not fly off the shelf as fast as they expected. I’m sure their own market research revealed that most readers do not want to pay more than $9.99 for a digital book. I think they also realized that it will be harder to compete against Amazon than they thought. After all, Apple’s success depends more on being able to sell the iPad than Amazon’s does on selling more Kindles. Amazon, in addition to the Kindle device also has a Kindle app for several other devices and will have one for the iPad as well. The clear loser of this round are the five major publishers who jumped on Apple’s bandwagon. The winners, besides Amazon and Apple, are Sony (because they probably had more to lose from the iPad than Amazon did) and Random House (because they were smart enough not to accept the agency model deal).
Over the next several months we’ll see just how much of an impact the iPad truly has on the eBook market. I’m still of the mind that its impact won’t be as big as mainstream publishing thinks it will be. When one considers Amazon’s place in the market, Google Books and its clear benefit to Sony (which is why Sony supports the Google Book Agreement), digital media pirates and the consumer (who doesn’t want to overpay for eBooks and may not think the iPad is the best choice for an eReader).
