Amazon recently removed about 5,000 ebooks from the Kindle store as a result of not being able to forge an agreement with Independent Publishers Group about over a new contract. The 41 year old IPG was founded in Chicago and officially went into the ebook business in 2001. The group is the second largest independent book distributor in the United States.
Amazon began to remove IPG titles from the Kindle Store at the beginning of the week when the two entities could not agree on terms on a new contract. The pullout is only for the ebooks, the printed editions of the same titles are still available at Amazon.
IPG is blaming Amazon for the disagreement. According to IPG president Mark Suchomel claims that Amazon is exerting pressure on publishers and on distributors so that the company can get the better deal.
“Our electronic book agreement recently came up for renewal, and Amazon took the opportunity to propose new terms for electronic and print purchases that would have substantially changed your revenue from the sale of both. It’s obvious that publishers can’t continue to agree to terms that increasingly reduce already narrow margins.” Suchomel said.
It is still unclear if the two companies will be able to iron out the disagreements and would even go back to the negotiating table.
Amazon’s problem with IPG mirrors the issue the company also had with MacMillan. Amazon and MacMillan had a dispute over pricing since the former wanted to sell ebooks for $9.99 but the latter felt that some books should cost more. MacMillan pulled its books from the store but Amazon eventually gave in and agreed to MacMillan’s pricing.
Originally posted on February 24, 2012 @ 8:35 pm
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