• Seattle Times et al., Monday, February 1, 2010 2:14 PM

The iPad, it turns out, isn't the only threat to Amazon's reign as digital book publishing king. Over the weekend, the bookseller and Kindle maker fought and lost a price-related power struggle with publisher Macmillan.

"Until now, Amazon has set e-book prices itself, with $9.99 as the default for new releases and best sellers," writes The Times. "Amazon's goal has been strategic: it aims to establish a low price for e-books that will have the ancillary benefit of helping it sell more Kindle devices."

Likewise, The Seattle Times writes: "Amazon wants to tamp down prices as competitors such as Barnes & Noble Inc., Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. line up to challenge its dominant position in the rapidly expanding market."

Macmillan wanted to raise its prices, so, on Friday, Amazon responded by pulling the publisher's books -- both digital and physical -- from its shelves. By Sunday, a backlash from Macmillan authors and supporters forced Amazon to relent, and agree to the new pricing model.

"Pricing," notes author and Brave New World blogger Martyn Daniels, "is an emotive issue and digital pricing ... clearly is now becoming a battlefield."

Though not directly involved, it was obvious to many analysts that Apple and its souped up e-reader were in fact responsible the coup.

"The unseen actor in this little mini-drama, of course, was Apple," writes GigaOm. "With the launch of the iPad, the consumer electronics giant tilted the balance of power in the e-book market decisively away from former leader Amazon, even though Apple's device isn't shipping yet."

Adds The Times: "Amazon's decision is also a victory for Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, who first pitched the idea of selling e-books under the agency model to book publishers earlier this year ... Now Apple, whose iPad tablet is due in March, can compete on fairly equal footing with Amazon."

Meanwhile, the debate continues to rage over at writer John Scalzi's Whatever blog, where he writes: "Leaving aside the moral, philosophical, cultural and financial implications of this weekend's Amazon/Macmillan slapfight and What It All Means for book readers and the future of the publishing industry, in one very real sense the whole thing was an exercise in public communications."

Read the whole story at Seattle Times et al. »