Amazon and Walmart/Google bookwars

Walmart, taking a digital leaf from Amazon's Kindle books, is pricing ten of the top-selling hardcover books for $10 each, a new development which is sending even more shivers through publishing circles already upset at the $10 pricing for the Kindle books.  Walmart's $10 titles include Stephen King's latest book Under the Dome and Palin's Going Rogue, as well as books from James Patterson and Dean Koontz.

  Walletpop reports that Amazon fired back with $10 pricing on those books as well, which apparently caused Walmart to drop and shoot $9. Amazon did the same! And lowered the Kindle pricing as well for those books.  Customers won, Publishers zero, practically.  Most agree, both companies are apparently willing to lose money.  And publishers are right to worry that customers are being trained to expect a $10 price for books -- bad enough (for them) with e-books but on hardcover books also?

  Wall St. Journal had the best quote:

' "If there is going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web,' it is going to be Walmart.com," said Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez in an interview. "Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site."

Wal-Mart's $10 promotion applies to the top 10 books coming out in November but the company is also selling 200 best-sellers for 50% of their list price. '

That's huge.
And Walmart's $10 pricing will include free shipping.

The WSJ also points out that

' Amazon has managed to encroach on Wal-Mart's general-store status online by steadily increasing the range of products it sells.  While it is best known for selling books and music, Amazon's second-quarter North American sales of "general merchandise" -- including everything from diapers to vacuums -- were for the first time larger than its sales of media.

It recently acquired shoe and apparel seller Zappos.com. And taking another cue from Wal-Mart, Amazon has steadily increased its range of private-label goods. '

So, this is actually more generalized war :-)  And again borrowing from Amazon, Walmart will start selling products from less well-known retailers, for a share of the receipts.


GOOGLE ENTERS BOOKSTORE SCENE WITH GOOGLE EDITIONS
Google announced it will be offering 500,000 e-books for any device with a web browser.

 I love my 10" screen netbook, which has a great screen, but I have no interest in reading books on it, via a web browser or any other program.  There's a big difference between surfing for hours (feasting on large bites here and there with the distraction and relief of multimedia) and linear reading of tremendous blocks of words, with that light shining into your eyes.

  Gartner analyst Allen Weiner is skeptical, citing Google's lack of experience selling media, and questions the effectiveness of offering e-books through Web browsers.  The only e-reader with a web browser at all is the Kindle which won't have a web browser enabled for some time in Europe or most of the rest of the world (though Kindles in Japan, Hong Kong, and Mexico will have that capability enabled).

EWeek adds some interesting info:

' As for the details of Editions itself, Google said it will offer in-print books from publisher partners, giving them 63 percent of revenues and keeping 37 percent for itself where it sold e-books directly to consumers.

Customers will be able to buy the books from Google directly or from other online stores such as Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com.  Where e-books were bought through other online retailers, publishers would get 45 percent and most of the remaining 55 percent would go to the retailer, with a small share going to Google. '

Competition is a great thing.