Macmillan and Amazon have settled their disagreement over e-book pricing (see “E-book Smackdown”) and Amazon has resumed selling Macmillan titles, which had not been available from the online retailing giant for a week.  The result is a victory for Macmillan, and presumably for other publishers that will demand similar terms, in allowing them to set their own prices for books rather than being forced to adopt Amazon’s $9.99 price for most titles.  Publishers wanted a higher price for e-books, closer or identical to the price for physical books sold by brick and mortar retailers. 

Another major publisher, Hachette, has announced that it also wants to set prices for its own books and to release the e-book editions day and date with the physical editions. 

The dispute had led to actions by authors (see “Writers Join E-book Smackdown”), and to a full page Macmillan ad in the New York Times last week behind one of its top titles with the blurb “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon.”

Publishers got more leverage in late January when Apple announced its electronic bookstore for the iPad, which offered more flexible terms to publishers than Amazon was attempting to impose.