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A number of US publishers have struck deals with Amazon.com and Sony that will allow them to set e-book prices, as the US publishing industry readies itself for the biggest shift in how e-books are sold ever in its short history.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Publishers have struck deals with Amazon.com to set their own prices on e-books, following the lead set by Macmillan US earlier in the year. Rival e-book manufacturer Sony has also confirmed that most e-books sold by Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins will be priced by the publishers, with costs expected to be between $12.99 to $14.99.
The deals follow the agency model agreed to earlier in the year by five US publishers with Apple: Amazon.com said in February that it would be forced to give in to a demands by Macmillan US to operate under similar terms follow a short, but very public, dispute with the publisher. In">http://www.thebookseller.com/news/111652-apple-helps-shift-landscape-for... February publishes told The Bookseller that others would soon follow, prompted by the upcoming launch of the Apple iPad.
The developments mean US publishers are facing a huge switch in how they sell digital books, with some warning of short terms problems in e-book availability as a result.
Hachette Book Group chief executive David Young confirmed in a note to authors and agents that it had "made arrangements with most of our ebook distributors to operate under this [agency] model", and warned that there could "be a few hiccups along the way, and you may even see some short-term interruption in the availability of our eBooks, especially in the first few days, as systems are being adapted to accommodate changes".
Random House is the only big US publisher not following this route, with its chief executive Markus Dohle">http://www.thebookseller.com/news/114927-random-house-admits-concern-ove... warning last month that Apple's pricing regime could erode established publishing practices. It was revealed earlier this week that Apple's had set strict guidelines on the prices publishers could put on e-books on its iBook Store, limited by the price of the competing printed title.