Kindle Fans Punish Book for Digital Delay

TechFlash reports: Amazon.com has been pushing publishers to release new books in hardcover and in electronic form for its Kindle readers at the same time. But some key publishers are holding back the digital edition of new titles by weeks or months to preserve hardcover sales (Kindle books are typically cheaper). Now there are signs that the battle over Kindle books is spilling over into an area of critical importance to authors and publishers: Amazon customer ratings.

Case in point: the much buzzed about new book Game Change, which spills secrets about the 2008 presidential election. The book has been deluged with one-star, negative reviews from apparent Kindle fans who are protesting News Corp. publisher HarperCollins' decision to delay the Kindle version to February 23. Those one-star reviews have contributed to a ho-hum average customer review rating of a 2.5 stars (out of 5). Customer reviews are an important factor for book sales on Amazon, and it will be interesting to see if the Kindle protests spread.

Here are some examples from the one-star ratings of Game Change:

This is time-sensitive material. No one is going to care in 6 weeks when it is released for the kindle. People want it now. The publisher is shooting themselves in the foot. They'd have made more money overall by offering the kindle version now.

And:

Publishers need to embrace the new digital reality and quit discriminating against those of us that would rather read our books on Kindle and other digital platforms. Release it on all platforms and you'll make even more money! DUH! I'm flying in two weeks and would have liked to have read the book, but I'm not going to lug a massive hardcover. You lost a sale.

Some in the publishing industry fear that Amazon's standard $9.99 (or lower) for new-release books on Kindle will create a "sticky" price in consumers' minds, dragging down the overall perceived value of books. The pre-order Kindle version of Game Change is $8.61; the hardback is $15.39.

A lot of people use customer reviews as a guide when they're looking for things on Amazon. Will they notice that the Kindle protest is dragging down ratings on some books because of the format—rather than the content—of those books?