E-books, or electronic books, have really been in the news lately.  Many people are excited at the prospects of being able to have an electronic “pad” from which to read, and store, many books, often at lower prices.  Some publishers, and booksellers, have been less than excited about the new trend, for the price of e-books is generally trending much lower than that of traditional, printed books.  Therefore, there have been some situations where publishers withheld the release of an e-book until some time after the release of the traditional, printed book.  This, of course, has been controversial with the buyers of e-books, who found it frustrating that they could not immediately purchase an e-book copy of a newly released, traditional printed book.

In Wednesday, March 3, 2010’s edition of “Shelf Awareness” the new CEO of Macmillan, John Sargent, directly addressed the issue.  Following is a statement, directly from “Shelf Awareness”:

In his first post on Macmillan’s website, CEO John Sargent addressed the e-book agency model, which the company will adopt at the end of March, “and how it will affect our business in the near term.” Sargent focused on what he termed “the two major effects at retail”–price and availability.

“All the new adult trade books for which we have the rights to publish in e-book format will be available at the first release of the printed book,” he wrote. “We will no longer delay the publication of e-books (read: no windowing). Readers were clearly frustrated at the lack of availability of new titles, and the change to the agency model will solve this problem. We are also working hard to make more books available in digital editions. The consumer will have broader choice and much greater availability.”

Sargent added that Macmillan will sell its e-books “at a wide variety of prices. In the ink-on-paper world we publish new books in different formats (hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market paperback) at prices that generally range from $35 to $5.99. In the digital world we will price each book individually as we do today.” Pricing for new hardcover releases will range between $12.99 and $14.99, with “a few books will be priced higher and lower,” including e-book editions of New York Times hardcover bestsellers, which “will be priced at $12.99 or lower while they are on the printed list. E-book editions of paperback new releases will be generally priced between $9.99 and $6.99.” 

It seems that Sargent certainly realizes that the e-book trend is not going to go away (even though some of us probably wish it would!).  It appears to me that his comments show that he definitely wants Macmillan to be at the forefront of the publishing world.  Likely a wise decision.