#Amazon ebook publishing series#

When Bezos finally announced that all e-books would be sold for $9.99, well below the retail price for almost any physical book (and in many cases lower than the wholesale price Amazon was paying the publishers), publishers were stunned and left with a bad taste in their mouths. Thus, unbeknownst to the publishers, Amazon had left the price at which Amazon would sell the e-books out of the negotiated contract, and only AmazonвЂ™s purchase price was negotiated. After almost two years of arm twisting, cajoling, and threats, Amazon was finally ready to announce the Kindle in 2007.Д«ezos knew that to attract consumers he needed a price for e-books that was lower than the price of physical books, but he also knew that the publishers would balk at that idea.

Publishers that did not cooperate were told their rankings in AmazonвЂ™s search results would tank or they would be completely removed from AmazonвЂ™s website. The negotiations relating to e-books were no less tense. Far from being the white knight alternative to Barnes & Noble, Amazon by 2004 had become the biggest and most aggressive customer that publishers had ever faced. ДЄmazon already had a strained relationship with publishers at this point. However, Bezos decided he needed to push them to hit 100,000 by 2007. At that time, all the major publishers in the world had digitized less than 20,000 books in total.

However, Bezos knew that for the Kindle to succeed where previous e-readers had failed, there needs to be lots of e-books available.

#Amazon ebook publishing series#

Pathways to Just Digital Future Watch this tech inequality series featuring scholars, practitioners, & activists Thus, the decision to go into e-books was a natural extension of AmazonвЂ™s desire to drive greater sales volume and increase publishersвЂ™ dependency. ДЄmazonвЂ™s business model in the book-selling business is based on the virtuous cycle of lower prices and convenience attracting customers, which leads to higher sales volume, which results in lower fixed costs per book and greater negotiating leverage with publishers, which allows Amazon to demand even lower prices. Soon thereafter he launched Lab126 which would later produce the first Kindle. Was there just no demand, or were these products missing the Bezos touch?Д«y 2004, facing the growing power and threat of a revived Apple, Jeff Bezos finally decided it was time to develop a digital strategy for Amazon in the media space. Companies like NuvoMedia, SoftBook, Rocketbook had all tried and failed.

However, two decades later, there was still no real platform for consumers to purchase and read books electronically. вЂњI firmly believe that at some point the vast majority of books will be in electronic form,вЂќ Jeff Bezos said in the 1997.