Amazon Looks For Best Price Guarantees From Publishers

Amazon is reportedly asking publishers to sign deals guaranteeing Kindle customers the best price for e-publications.

According to the New York Times, Amazon began calling newspaper, magazine, and book publishers even before Steve Jobs finished announcing the iPad on January 27th. They were trying to get information on what deals Apple offered them to supply content on the new tablet.

Since December, Amazon has been pushing publishers to sign a new round of legal agreements that would guarantee that the Kindle price for their content is always the same or lower than the price on other electronic reading devices, such as the iPad or the Sony Reader. The clause, a variation of a legal concept known as “most favored nation,” would guarantee that Amazon’s customers would always get the best price for electronic versions of magazines, newspapers and books.


In order to get publishers to agree to this, Amazon is offering some of them a bigger cut of revenue. Book publishers are a bit different in this respect as they are trying to push Amazon give them more control over pricing which would actually yield them less revenue.

Industry insiders expect this war over pricing and features to continue for quite some time.

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