You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Waterstone's has begun selling HarperCollins' e-books on agency terms while it continues discussions with Penguin and Hachette, over the sale on their e-books on the new terms.
The retailer had continued to sell a selection of HarperCollins e-books on its site after the publisher implemented agency pricing yesterday. However, a spokesperson said today that it had now agreed agency terms with HarperCollins for all its e-books, becoming the first retailer outside of Amazon.co.uk and Apple to sell e-books through agency.
A spokesperson admitted there could be some pricing anomalies or that some titles may be unavailable temporarily. Chris Evans' Memoir of a Fruitcake was one of HarperCollins' titles not available as an e-book. However, the spokesperson said any issues should be resolved soon. She said it was "an ongoing process".
She said because agency terms precluded any discounting or offers from the retailer, with loyalty card points now removed from HarperCollins' digital titles.
Meanwhile, Hachette has said that "in general" it will price e-books below the print counterpart. This morning The Bookseller reported Stephen King's Just After Sunset was priced £17.99 as a Kindle edition, compared to £4.99 in paperback. The Kindle price has now changed to £4.49.
A spokesperson said: "The ebook price for Stephen King's Just After Sunset quoted on Amazon earlier was as a result of technical error that has been corrected. We are providing mechanical data for many thousands of ebooks and, regrettably, the odd error creeps in." She added: "In general our ebooks are priced below the prevailing edition in print. For example where the paperback is £7.99, the ebook will be priced between £4.49 and £6.49 (including VAT) and where the hardback is priced at around £20, the ebook price will be in the region of £8.99."
The spokesperson added Hachette was looking to resolve any other pricing errors listed on the site.