The Kindle Wins a Round

TechFlash reports: Amazon.com has scored a big win its battle with the publishing industry over pricing of electronic books. The online retailer said today that thriller writer Dan Brown's next book, "The Lost Symbol," will release in print and e-book form on the same day, Sept. 15, with the Kindle e-book edition priced at $9.99 -- Amazon's set price for Kindle new releases. There had been some speculation Random House might withhold "The Lost Symbol," a potential blockbuster, from Kindle because of Amazon's pricing policy (the hardcover version of the book is selling for $16.17 on Amazon). But in the end, the publisher caved.

The publishing industry has been wary about Amazon's Kindle pricing policy, believing it could eat into sales of higher-priced hardcover releases. "The Lost Symbol" was a big test case. It shot to the top of Amazon's bestselling book the day it became available for pre-order in April, and has been mostly in the top ten since then. It appears that Random House didn't want to push the matter too far with Amazon, which is still a critical sales channel for hardcover. Random House/Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz, in an emailed statement, said, "all of our security and logistical issues surrounding the e-book of ‘The Lost Symbol’ have been resolved."

The next skirmish over Kindle pricing may come with horror writer Stephen King's new novel, "Under the Dome," according to the Wall Street Journal. The hardcover book is slated for release on Nov. 10 and is priced at $23.10 on Amazon, but there's no Kindle version yet I can find. It's interesting that Stephen King is a holdout, given that he joined Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for the Kindle 2 launch, where it was announced he'd written a novella, "Ur," specifically for Kindle.

Amazon's $9.99 pricing on new release e-books is setting a standard; Sony and Barnes & Noble, Amazon's leading competitors in the e-book market, have adopted similar pricing models.