You have a point - but bear in mind that "corporate back room strategery" in this case involves Macmillan trying to raise prices by 50% for consumers. This isn't David vs. Goliath.
In a serious PR war, I don't see how MacMillan can win this one.
With which constituency? Authors are, understandably very upset with what they see as a power grab by Amazon. You can get a sense of the sentiment in that community by looking through the comments here http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012148.html#01...
But in a larger sense, most readers understand that authors do need to get paid if the flow of new books are to continue.
My take is that Amazon will come to regret this action.
Yes, not a very random selection of people, but IMHO a decent enough approximation of your average consumer. Note that all of the upvoted comments are congratulating Amazon on fighting for the little guys.
I too am disturbed by this power play, but in a large PR battle with the general public I don't think MacMillan is going to win many points.
I disagree. It should not be Amazon's business what MacMillan charges for its books (in this case, specifically its e-books). I think this is a slippery slope situation. When Amazon has so much power to throw around, what's the limit of their demands? Today it's pricing, what will it be tomorrow? And the day after? It is rare for any large corporation to avoid abusing any newly acquired power to the utmost extent in seeking advantage for itself. If consumers roll over and don't raise a fuss about Amazon's use of power in this instance, I have little doubt that Amazon will find future uses for its new found power.
Amazon has a right to buy books for the price they can negotiate and sell them for whatever price they want. MacMillan is trying to force them to sell ebooks at the same price as every other ebook retailer. Let's see, what would we call that... How about price fixing? --Something generally considered bad for the consumer.
Amazon is doing exactly what any other business with bargaining power would do. And really, Amazon is doing what customers want - they're trying to keep prices down. So really, who should consumers be mad at - Amazon for working to keep prices lower, or MacMillan for trying to prevent competition in the market and make sure their books are being sold for the highest price possible?
It's exactly the business of a retailer to decide on how much its sells goods for. That's one of the single most important functions of a retail business. It can also be great for the consumer--do you think Wal-Mart would have just as low of prices if the prices were set by the manufacturer?
If you want to be able to set your price you just open your own store. Retail isn't as fun of an idea at that point though, there's a lot more to it.
Amazon is just following the model set by Apple. Apple pays whatever they want to recording companies, and we are OK with it. Amazon and Apple are now doing the same to book publishers, and I don't see how they will be able to fight back.
It turns out that the digital future will look even more centralized than the previous world. And one day people may even start missing the old world of big record labels and book publishers.
In a serious PR war, I don't see how MacMillan can win this one.