Do I Hear $8? Amazon Stares Down Wal-Mart In Price War Over Best Sellers

As an avid reader, I can’t see any reason to complain about this.

As the Wall Street Journal notes this morning, Amazon (AMZN) and Wal-Mart (WMT) are suddenly locked in a ferocious price war over book prices. Wal-Mart yesterday chopped the prices on 10 much-anticipated new titles to $10; Amazon quickly matched the move. Then WMT went to $9; and Amazon has now followed suit.

(The list of titles include Sarah Palin’s much anticipated memoir, plus new novels by Stephen King, the late Michael Crichton, John Grisham, Barbara Kingsolver and Dean Koontz, among others.)

Good for readers, yes, but it can’t possibly be a good development either for bookstores or for publishers; if $10, or even $9, became the standard price for best-selling hardcovers, the economics of the book business would need a dramatic overhaul.

In today’s trading:

• AMZN is down $1.83, or 1.9%, to $94.18.


• WMT is up 3 cents at $50.98.


• Barnes & Noble (BKS) is down $1.21, or 5.8%, to $19.62.


• Borders Group (BGP) is down 13 cents, or 4.2%, to $2.96.