The full text is included below, but here is the key statement that lays out the publishing industry’s debate: “Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book.”

Here is Amazon’s note: “Macmillan, one of the ‘big six’ publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

“We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And 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.

“Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy! Thank you for being a customer.”

In addition, Macmillan books are still not available directly from Amazon, as you can see by following links to John Scalzi‘s Old Man’s War or William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value.

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The $9.99 price point has been a touchy subject all year. As we reported yesterday, a vocal contingent of Amazon customers are still encouraging others to boycott Kindle books that cost more than $9.99. The story kept GalleyCat readers and editors busy over the weekend.

Novelist Bendan McNally wrote: “Once I talked up my novel, GERMANIA, to a lady at a Starbucks who was using a Kindle. she looked my book up, didn’t like what they were charging for the download, but bought it anyway. She just asked that I pass on to my editor her opinion that ebooks should not be priced at more that 9.99. I kept my end of the bargain. The publisher’s response was silence.”

Another readers retorted: “I doubt Amazon is letting the views of 2200 customers dictate a pricing policy that affects millions. If 2200 are unhappy enough to post about it, that means (let’s ballpark it) 2,997,800 are at least neutral enough not to join the conversation.”

Reader Allen Harkleroad wrote: “This news makes me so glad that I am self-published and don’t rely on large book publishers for income.” Bear Mountain Books wrote: “I’m really not sure Amazon took the best route to get this pricing dispute in the open, but they did get attention on the problem. The Amazon forums seem a bit split on the outcome. There are those saying, ‘let them price how they want and we’ll decide if we pay it’ and those that say, ‘Thanks, Amazon for taking a stand.’”

Many other outlets have covered this strange affair, including: the AP and Publishers Weekly and BoingBoing and VentureBeat and John Scalzi and Munsey’s the LA Times and MediaMemo and Mashable and Digital Book World. Macmillan books are still not available directly from Amazon, as you can see by following links to John Scalzi‘s Old Man’s War or William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value.

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The story broke on Friday evening, as Amazon and Macmillan had a dispute over raising the standard eBook price from $9.99 to around $15. After negotiations ended in “impasse,” the online bookseller stopped directly selling Macmillan titles, only offering Macmillan books through outside vendors. The $9.99 price point has been a touchy subject all year. As we reported yesterday, a vocal contingent of Amazon customers are still encouraging others to boycott Kindle books that cost more than $9.99.

Here’s an excerpt from the Publishers Lunch ad: “Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.”

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No matter how this situation is sorted out, publishers will soon have to convince another constituency: Amazon customers. We reported today that scores of Amazon customers are urging others to boycott books priced over $9.99.

Many other outlets have covered this strange affair, including: the AP and Publishers Weekly and BoingBoing and VentureBeat and John Scalzi and Munsey’s the LA Times and MediaMemo and Mashable.

Requests for comment have not been returned, but Macmillan books are still not available directly from Amazon, as you can see by following links to John Scalzi‘s Old Man’s War or William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value. Tune in tomorrow for any new developments.

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As we noted this morning, Macmillan and Amazon (AMZN) appear to be in dispute about Amazon’s common $9.99 price for Kindle books. No matter what happens, publishers will face another opponent in this battle: Amazon customers.

As publishers and the monolithic bookseller debate this eBook price point, GalleyCat went to the Amazon discussion forums to find out what customers expect. We discovered that customers are still boycotting books priced more than $9.99–so far, 2,183 customers have tagged 3,302 books with the “9.99 boycott” label.

Last month, one Amazon customer wrote a brief manifesto entitled: “Support the $9.99 Boycott“–drawing 122 customer responses. Here’s an excerpt: “Boycott the kindle edition books offered for over $9.99. A couple of the authors that I have read in the past are offering their books for more than $9.99. I will obtain these books for free from the library. If we consumers don’t hold the line, the prices will escalate while the economy continues to bomb. GREEDY TURDS!”

While we are not endorsing these customer views, it is important to note that the Amazon customer base is exerting a pressure on the company to keep prices low. Other popular tags from Kindle readers include: “outrageous kindle price” and “books to kindle when price goes down.” We have been reporting on this trend since April 2009, but these vocal customers haven’t quit.

Amazon has not replied to our request for comment, but, as of this writing, Macmillan books like John Scalzi‘s Old Man’s War and William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value are not available for direct sale from Amazon. We will keep you posted as the story develops. In the meantime, here’s more from BoingBoing and VentureBeat and John Scalzi and Munsey’s and the LA Times and MediaMemo.

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Here is an excerpt: “Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books, said this person, who did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.”

It appears that Macmillan books are still not available directly from Amazon, as you can see by following this link to John Scalzi‘s Old Man’s War or this link to William Poundstone‘s Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value.

We’ve contacted Amazon with a request for comment, and we will keep you updated as the story evolves. In the meantime, here’s more from BoingBoing and VentureBeat and John Scalzi and Munsey’s.

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For the last five seasons, Lost has been loaded with literary references, and this week GalleyCat broke the news of a New Directions novel that will play a role in the upcoming season.

It has been an eventful week at GalleyCat Headquarters. We covered a major product launch, a digital conference, and some sad literary news. Amid all this excitement, GalleyCat Reviews finally launched.

We also gave publishers tips on how they can use virtual currencies and virtual goods, following the example of Facebook-based games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars.

We also covered the Digital Book World conference, a two-day crash course in 21st Century publishing.

We lost three great writers.

Finally, and some company called Apple released some fancy new gadget that you can use to read books.

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GalleyCat has been tracking the stock performance of the major companies that influence the bookselling business. We created this chart with eight publicly-traded publishing stocks hand-picked by our readers–including company name, symbol, current stock price, and price increase or decrease at week’s close.

-Name- -Symbol- -Last price- -Change-

The McGraw-Hill Co. MHP 35.45 -0.11
Books-A-Million, Inc. BAMM 6.37 0.03
Borders Group, Inc. BGP 0.86 -0.02
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN 125.41 -0.62
Barnes & Noble, Inc. BKS 17.48 -0.32
Wiley John & Sons Inc. JW.A 41.75 -0.46
Scholastic Corporation SCHL 29.9 -0.13
News Corporation NWS 14.68 0.13
Google Inc. GOOG 529.42 -4.87
Apple Inc. AAPL 192.12 -7.17
Sony Corporation SNE 33.23 -0.57

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Our post about the presentation ended up being one of the most popular stories this week, so we’ve embedded Verso Digital’s complete slideshow presentation below.

Verso Digital business development director Jack McKeown noted that 27.5 percent of the surveyed readers would not pay more than $10 for an eBook. “They have been converted to Amazon price range,” explained McKeown. However, 37 percent of the readers said they aren’t sure how much they would pay. “Somewhere in the $10 to $18 range there may be a sweet spot,” he concluded.

What do you think? If you want to read more, the Philadelphia Social Media Examiner, journalist Cindy Ratzlaff also pondered these statistics in an essay.

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It was a sad week for the literary world as we lost scholar Howard Zinn, author Louis Auchincloss, and the great J.D. Salinger.

Various writers and journalists around the web have memorialized these great writers. At New York, Boris Kachka wrote a tribute to Auchincloss: “He was–because of long life and his Whartonian style–a living anachronism. But his lament was less for a vanished class than for a bygone sense of shame. He understood that, whether in a feudal world or a meritocracy, power means nothing without responsibility.”

Editor Chris Kubica told us about the thousands of fans who have written letters to Salinger over the years.

Over at Classics Rock, Larry Hughes collected all the rock songs that reference the work of Zinn. He also compiled a list of all the songs inspired by The Catcher in the Rye.

Finally, cartoonist Jeffrey Koterba sent in that lovely cartoon to celebrate Salinger’s legacy in the 21st Century. Click here to see his tribute to John Updike.

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Next, Esi Sogah was elevated to associate editor at the Morrow/Avon imprint. Here’s more from the release: “In addition to acquiring her own titles, Esi’s interest in digital publishing and website development has made her a valued asset in our future growth. She is also one of our most enthusiastic and asked-for public speakers at conferences.”

Finally, Nicole Reardon was promoted to associate director of marketing at Harper. Here’s more from the release: “Since joining Harper last year, Nicole has become an indispensible member of the team … Prior to joining us, she led several bestselling paperback campaigns including Garth Stein‘s Art of Racing in the Rain, and John Grogan‘s Marley and Me.”

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Reviewed by Louise Leetch
Read more about GalleyCat Reviews

They say you should write about what you know and Frederick Brown certainly knows France–he wrote biographies of both Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert. In his new book, For The Soul of France, Brown plumbs the depths of the country’s psyche.

Here is the saga of France’s sojourn from monarchy to a republic. The French Revolution may have begun in 1789 but it was fought well into the twentieth century–the author shows us the whole convoluted, tortured trip. It’s a miracle the Third Republic survived with attacks from left and right, economic disasters, and revolving door Premiers.

This book reveals frightening similarities to the first ten years of the 21st century. The book contains all the lies, finger-pointing, invented evidence we’ve seen since 2000. There’s a lion’s share of yellow journalism. Fear was the weapon of choice. Sadly, it was all accepted by those who were taught to think, but didn’t.

While this is not a beach book–you’ll trip over fifty-dollar words–it’s certainly the quickest, most readable history I’ve seen in years. Mr. Brown gives us all the puzzle pieces we need but he’s not giving anything away. Be prepared to think and to reason, because this book is not about the Soul of France, it’s about the search for it. Get out your dictionaries, sharpen up your French and Latin, and let your brain run through this forest of facts. Getting lost is half the fun.

continued…

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Our digitally-obsessed sibling eBookNewser actually embedded the video and added some commentary at this link.

“The prices will be the same,” Jobs told Wall Street Journal reporter Walt Mossberg in a brief Flipcam interview. He also took a quick dig at Amazon: “Publishers are actually withholding books from Amazon because they’re not happy.”

Here’s a final quote from the interview, as Job addressed the ten-hour reading battery life on the device: “It’s not a big deal. Ten hours is a long time, you’re not going to read for ten hours!”

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First up, Longitude Books is looking for a Fulfillment Manager, Online Bookstore. ALM needs an Advertising Sales Account Representative.

Next, HarprCollins Publishers seeks a Marketing Manager/ Senior Marketing Manager. Scholastic needs a Supervising Editor.

Finally, Open Road Integrated Media Digital Marketing Manager. Here’s more about the job: This position will help lead Open Road Integrated Medias marketing and promotion efforts. Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to the following categories: Market Research, Marketing Plans and Campaigns, Social Media and Mobile Marketing, Business Development Marketing Concepts.”

Visit GalleyCat’s publishing jobs page for more listings. If you have any job leads, email GalleyCat to get them posted.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here’s more about the book, a tribute to the author of The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories. “[It] commemorates the 50th anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye and celebrates the formative influence the book and Salinger’s other works have had on many writers, scholars and readers. Letters to Salinger contains approximately 80 open letters to J. D. Salinger.

Press play on the embedded player below to listen. The episode will be archived around the network all day.

Here’s an excerpt: “For the most part it seems like people who are writing stories about Salinger aren’t looking any farther than the things they can find online. In fact, the majority of the material written about Salinger–from literary critical perspective, the interviews, reviews–are all pre-Internet. You’d have to go to an archive and read the old magazines. It’s clear to me that people aren’t really doing that. They are just getting the soundbytes and pulling things off saying, ‘Here’s a link to this, here’s a link to that.’”

You can listen to all the past podcasts archived at mediabistro.com or download episodes for free on iTunes. Click here to download the MP3 version.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.