$9.99 E-Book Pricing May Stick Around In the iPad Era

Much attention has been given to the feud between Amazon and major publishers over e-book pricing. Amazon would like to keep its $9.99 pricing for bestsellers and new releases while publishers are looking to do away with the cap, opening up the market for higher prices between $12.99 and $14.99. Now that the publishers have some major back in the way of Apple, who signed deals that allow for the higher pricing, it looks like they’ll be getting their way across the market.

Sounds pretty bad for consumers, right? Well, according to a new report on the New York Times, $9.99 e-books won’t vanish into the night.  While the focus has been on the higher pricing, the new deals being made between Apple and publishers reportedly require discount pricing on bestsellers. Prices on e-book titles would also be lower for books that retail below average price in their hard-cover versions. So those titles will sell below the $14.99 price and may be as low as $9.99.

Apple announced deals with five of the biggest players in publishing when it originally unveiled the iPad: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. [NY Times via Ars Technica]