This would be transparent and fair to all storefronts and device makers, would be good for publishers (who would be able to maintain price controls), and it would be good for readers as they would be able to choose their preferred edition, storefront, and device. Moreover, such a groundrule would make it difficult for anyone to form a monopoly.

However, the actions taken by Hatchett and Simon & Schuster do nothing to further this aim. If the aim is to create a heterogeneous ebook ecosystem resistant to monopoly control, then publishers must reward those companies that employ technologies and practices that will lead to that outcome.

As Dan points out above, publishers might do this by releasing ebooks only in ePub format to coincide with the launch of the hardcover edition. If Amazon doesn’t wish to support ePub, so be it. Let them wait (in fact, let them wait even longer than 3 months). This will provide a boost to storefronts and devices that employ open standards, allowing them to become competitive enough to challenge the Kindle’s current lead and force Amazon to support the ePub format, thereby reducing Amazon’s ability to create a monopoly.

Simply delaying release of ALL ebook formats does not penalize Amazon in any way relative to other ebook purveyors and thus will not hinder Amazon’s monopolistic goals. In this I agree with Kent–their behavior is indeed irrational and accomplishes nothing beyond frustrating readers of all ebook devices.

They may hang on to it as long as possible for those reasons, as well.

I also want to point out that people continue to talk about “books” as if they’re all the same dynamic. The situation for trade publishers is quite different from that of scholarly publishers. I think that for scholarly publishers, eBook + POD is inevitably the way to optimize income and minimize cost (and investment). Not the same, at the present time, for the big trade publishers.–Bill Kasdorf

–Bill Kasdorf

If you buy a Rex, or whatever, can you read your Kindle purchases on that new device? If not, then you’ve created a huge barrier to customer freedom, resulting in a monopoly lock-in.

Do you really see e-book sales increasing from less than 3% of the market to the majority of the market within one year? That’s a little wildly optimistic.

Bezos’ numbers are cherry-picked and essentially meaningless, as I pointed out at length here. I’ll reiterate:
To counter some of your anecdotal evidence, we (CSHL Press) have 6 books available through the Kindle store. We’ve sold only a few Kindle copies of each this year, while the print copies of those same books continue to sell very well. The ratio is closer to one to hundreds than Bezos’ alleged 1 to 2 sales rate. And I’m glad you brought that number up because it’s a good example of Amazon’s cherrypicking and misleading use of statistics. What does that mean, “for books available in e-book and print formats, Amazon sells 48 e-books for every 100 print”? Take a look at Kindle’s current bestsellers (not sure if these have changed since I first wrote this response a few days ago). 9 of the top 10 are available for free, and 8 of those books are available in print as well. How does that skew Bezos’ numbers? Amazon has 350,000 plus books in its Kindle store. An impressive number until you realize that nearly 300,000 books were published in the US alone last year, with worldwide estimates being closer to 2.55 million (pdf link). The entire Kindle library represents only a tiny fraction of the total number of books available, so can we really generalize much about the vague sales figures offered? Another classic bit of spin was the claim that the Kindle outsells every other product on Amazon, which was dissected here. Bezos’ and Amazon’s statements must be taken purely as marketing copy, at least until they want to establish some actual credibility by releasing numbers.