News Corp's HarperCollins Turns Against Kindle Store Rupert Murdoch Disagrees With Amazon's Kindle Pricing Scheme Too

Last week, possibly spurred by the iPad's big reveal, MacMillan
Publishers and Amazon got into a disagreement over the pricing of the
eBooks on the Kindle Store, which led to Amazon removing th
e publisher. Amazon said they were getting pressure from the big six
book publishers, and now another – HarperCollins – has
voiced their opinion.
At the earnings call for mega media conglomerate News Corporation, CEO
and Chairman Rupert Murdoch, speaking about the Kindle pricing
controversy (of course, remember that News Corp owns HarperCollins,
another one of the 'big six' worldwide book publishers), said that, We
don't like the Amazon model of $9.99 ... it really devalues books and
hurts all the retailers of hardcover books.
Obviously not good for the consumer as another one of the big publishing
houses is demanding that Amazon sell their books for more. Murdoch went
on to say that their deal to sell books on the iPad's iBooks platform
gave them more flexibility, and higher prices. The iBooks deal, in turn,
makes Amazon more perceptive to the big publishing houses' suggestions
that they charge $14.99 for an eBook.
It now seems that all the major publishers will fall in line and begin
pressing Amazon to sell their new books at the $14.99 price. Amazon
themselves said in their open letter earlier this week, We know for
sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see
this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an
alternative.
It's ironic, considering that four years ago, Apple refused to budge
with the music studios on the $0.99 pricepoint for iTunes songs, while
Amazon promised them that they could sell their CDs or MP3s for whatever
they wanted on their site. No word yet from the other four (of the big
six), which include Hachette, Penguin, Random House (who was absent from
the iPad keynote) and Simon Schuster on their opinion on the matter,
but we know how they'll respond to the opportunity to charge higher
prices, don't we?