Notes in the Margin Weblog

At BookExpo America, Anxiety Amid the Chatter – NYTimes.com:

As the book industry gathered for its annual convention in New York this week, it had plenty to be nervous about: the threat of piracy, the decline of brick-and-mortar stores and the perhaps-too-low price of e-books.

Looking Ahead – Hot Books for a Cold January – NYTimes.com:

To get you started on some possibilities for next year’s best books list, “Here are some of the big books expected in January.”

Nation’s Retailers Engage In Online Book Pricing War : NPR:

Anyone who has ever cringed at the price of a new hardcover book will be interested in news of the current price war between some of the largest retailers:

The price war took off last week when Walmart, in a bid to compete with Amazon for the online market, cut its price for online pre-orders of 10 upcoming best-sellers to $10. Amazon responded by bringing its price down to $10. So Walmart lowered the price to $9. Amazon followed suit. By Friday afternoon, Walmart had dropped its price to $8.99. Then, on Monday, Target joined the fray, announcing that it, too, would sell online pre-orders for certain best-sellers at $8.99.

Sure, it would be nice to get the hottest new best seller at a reduced cost. But read the rest of this NPR article for possible ramifications of this pricing policy on the entire publishing industry. It’s hard to decide whether, in the long run, a price war like this will help or hurt the book-consuming public.