Price Wars: Amazon Battles Traditional German Publishers

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/amazon-seeks-fifty-percent-of-revenues-from-ebook-sales-a-979211.html



Amazon is delaying deliveries in Germany in a bid to raise its share of e-book earnings. A number of the country's biggest publishers say the strategy amounts to blackmail and are refusing to cave in. But their refusal to compromise could cost them their future

Price Wars: Amazon Battles Traditional German Publishers
By Isabell Hülsen and Claudia Voigt
July 04, 2014 – 03:59 PM

"A place in the sun. Real friends. Pleasant surprises" reads the slogan gracing the facade of Amazon's headquarters in Schwabing, a district in Munich. Perfectly set off against a matt surface, the silver lettering does indeed shimmer in the July sun. "Fertile ideas. No nonsense." Given the conflict raging this summer between the company and the German book industry, the words reaching across two storeys of the building could be construed as somewhat mocking.

Amazon's adversary in the conflict is the Swedish Bonnier Group. The Swedish media conglomerate's Germany imprints include famous names in the country's publishing industry like Piper, Carlsen and Ullstein. Whenever Amazon sells a Bonnier e-book, it collects 30 percent of the retail price. But now Amazon wants its share hiked to 50 percent. So far, Bonnier is refusing to budge. "Amazon is undermining our ability to survive," says Christian Schumacher-Gebler, CEO for Bonnier Media Deutschland.

"Negotiating is daily bread for us retailers," says Ralf Kleber, CEO of Amazon Deutschland.

Kleber recently returned from Seattle, home to the Amazon mother ship. He seems to have brought back with him some of corporate America's upbeat and uncomplicated attitude. The door to his office is open, but no framed family photographs, shelves of CDs or actual books are anywhere to be seen. The 48-year-old sports a pale blue shirt and jeans, with his Amazon ID on a yellow lanyard standing in for a tie. The "Ralf" in his name appears on the ID in big, bold letters. His surname is barely visible.