Amazon Shanks Penguin With Slashed Hard Cover Book Prices

Amazon knows with the iPad on the market and a glut of other eReaders that are equally as cool as its kindle on the market today the big factor in choosing a new device might just boil down to the price of books. Amazon has been fighting with major publishers over how to price digital books and that fight has been ugly.

Amazon was selling new release digital books for $9.99, but when the iPad landed, it was offering new releases at a higher price and put pressure on Amazon to raise prices in its own digital store. Amazon earlier this month announced that it would be suspending the sale of digital books by Penguin and Hachette over the pricing war.

Amazon is intent on forcing the $9.99 price tag down Penguin's throat though and since it can't do that price on digital books, it has cut the price of some of the publishers hard cover books to $9.99. Publishers still maintain that a $9.99 hard cover cheapens the value in the buyers mind. Whatever, this price war is about profits and has nothing to do with what the customer wants. I'd take a $9.99 hardcover over the same book at $15 and any avid reader would.