Amazon Strikes Back: Are Exclusive eBook Deals The Future?

It was only a matter of time, but Amazon is finally getting aggressive with its efforts to make Amazon Kindle the top e-book platform on the market. For months, Amazon Kindle was the only viable option when it came to picking up a decent e-book reader. Nowadays, you have Sony and B&N developing fairly sophisticated e-book readers that can hold up their own against Amazon Kindle. A device such as Nook has access to what B&N is selling, so its not inferior to Amazon Kindle in that department (unlike other e-book readers). But what B&N can’t do is access to the works produced by Amazon’s exclusive content partners.

The New York Time is reporting that Amazon has sealed a deal with one of the top business authors, a deal that not only could set Amazon apart from its competitors but demonstrate Amazon’s next book in the e-book wars. Stephen Covery has written some great books in the past, but if you are interested in reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Principle-Centered Leadership,” you can now do that on Kindle (unless you have access to their PDF versions somehow).

Exclusive deals can be both attractive and stressful for publishers. If you are a superstar, you are going to have more opportunities to make money with your content. Amazon and other companies will certainly look for superstars, so there are going to be more deal opportunities in the future. At the same time, if you are a small, unknown publisher, you may not get so much love from these companies.

Publishing houses are going to be nervous about this deal as well. There are plenty of authors that don’t mind getting paid more for their work if they work an exclusive deal with Amazon or other companies. Let’s not forget that Amazon is adding customers fast, so in the near future, authors can rely more on the Kindle platform to get paid for their work. The good news here is that authors will have more opportunities to make more money from their work. I am all for that. But exclusive book deals that are based on a specific platform are not exactly good for consumers. Whether you are a Nook or Kindle owner, you should be able to buy e-books from any place without having to worry about these deals. We are not there yet and probably won’t get there in the near future. Of course, Amazon can always allow Nook owners to download Amazon e-books as well. For that, we will need Amazon to start selling open format e-books. It’ could happen but is not very likely at this point. We can always dream.