It seems like book publishers such as McMillen and now HarperCollins are quickly trying to milk Amazon ($AMZN) as much as possible. They're demanding Amazon raise e-book prices and gouge the consumers or they'll stop selling on its e-com website. Why are they doing this? Well, other than saving trees, there is a small window of opportunity to rake in more profit before the onslaught of new tablet devices hits the market, ie the iPad and HP Slate.
I predict the proliferation of these devices will drive down e-book prices even further, most likely lower than $9.99. In the meantime, it's probably going to kill Amazon's bottom line as consumers buy less e-books and take a wait and see stance. Oh the hand, Apple ($AAPL) is quietly laughing at these threats because they know they potentially have a hot product in the pipeline. As for myself, I'll just wait until the day I get to test drive the iPad and decide whether it's a cool e-book reader or not.
