Com a chegada do Ipad, da Apple, e os preparativos para o lançamento do e-reader da Google, o mercado editorial “tradicional” está prestes a sentir os primeiros impactos do livro digital e, diante disso, começa a se articular para um novo modelo de negócios. Abaixo, matéria do Financial Times (www.ft.com) que trata da pressão da editora Macmillan sobre a Amazon, detentora do já popular Kindle, e da movimentação iniciada por outros players. Um trecho é fundamental para compreender o momento: “With physical sales under threat, the bookseller stands to lose unless it has a foot in the new world”.

(Marcelo Sandes).

Ps: Caro Paulo, para não ficar devendo (já que o texto está em inglês), sugiro este link para matéria do Valor, que aborda o mesmo assunto, reproduzida no Blog do Carvalho.

Electronic commerce: A page is turned

By David Gelles and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

Published: February 8 2010 23:00 | Last updated: February 8 2010 23:00

It was the day after Apple unveiled its iPad and Macmillan’s John Sargent was heading for the Amazon.com headquarters in Seattle on a hastily arranged visit. The chief executive of the venerable publisher arrived with an ultimatum for the world’s largest bookseller – either let Macmillan charge more for its electronic books or wait a painful six months after it made new titles available through other outlets, including on the iPad.

Amazon balked. By the time Mr Sargent returned to New York that evening, it had begun removing all Macmillan titles – both e-books and physical books – from its website. If Macmillan wanted to play hardball, it seemed Amazon was game.

But just a day later, Amazon capitulated, agreeing in principle to raise the prices for Macmillan’s e-books. The iPad launch had underscored the increasingly stiff competition it faced in the fast-growing digital books business and Amazon simply could not afford to lose Macmillan’s titles, which include bestsellers such as Wolf Hall, The Politician and The Checklist Manifesto. Continua aqui .