Hachette e-books removed from Waterstone's, WHS, and Book Depository

20.09.10 - Graeme Neill - The Bookseller

Hachette e-books have been removed from the websites of Waterstone's, W H Smith, Tesco and The Book Depository after the publisher said it would move to agency terms from today (20th September). But Amazon.co.uk is still selling Hachette titles on the Kindle, and appears to still be setting the prices.

The Bookseller reported late on Friday that Hachette planned to move to the agency model, whereby it sets the prices of e-books, from Monday, with Gardners, which wholesales e-books, telling its customers that this arrangement included Amazon and Apple. An email sent by Gardners read: "These are not Gardner terms, but the publisher's and may I suggest that should you wish to 'discuss' the terms, direct the queries to the publisher."

But as of Monday morning Amazon is continuing to set prices of Hachette e-books below that of Apple, which is already on agency terms. Breaking Dawn is £4.49 in the iBookstore, but £3.41 on Kindle. Rosamund Lipton's Sister (Piatkus), is on sale on the Apple iBookstore for £3.99, but is priced at £3.20 on the Kindle store. Michael Connolly's Nine Dragons (Orion) is £5.99 on Apple and £3.59 on Amazon. Amazon.co.uk has previously insisted that it would set its own prices for Kindle editions.

Other retailers, including Waterstone's, Tesco, WH Smith and The Book Depository have removed the e-book editions from sale. Titles such as the Breaking Dawn e-book are listed as "out of stock" on the The Book Depository. On Waterstones.com and Tesco.com they simply do not come up in the search, while on W H Smith's website they are listed as "not available".

More at The Bookseller.