[Barcey]

In a surprising weekend annoucement John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan publishing announced new $5.99 ebook pricing. The bold statement was made in an open letter to the Macmillan authors, illustrators and literary agents. To explain the pricing he stated that a new business model is required to grow the digital business, encourage new devices and healthy competition. He was quoted as stating, "It also needs to insure that intellectual property can be widely available digitally at a price that is both fair to the consumer and allows those who create it and publish it to be fairly compensated."

It's not clear at this time if other publishers will follow this brave new strategy.

Although I still feel that $5.99 is too high for an electronic book that could be rendered inoperable at any time because of vendor DRM, I wish to encourage Mr. Sargent in his new enterprise. If others feel the same way I think we should all assist Mr. Sargent in meeting the $5.99 target price.

Instead of purchasing new ebooks and until we reach the $5.99 goal, we should instead pool the $9.99 we would have otherwise spent and donate the money to the long term rebuilding of Haiti. The donation could be made in honor of Mr. Sargent. As most people are aware the rebuilding effort is expected to take at least 10 years so we have lots of time.

What can we read in the mean time:

- Explore electronic ebooks at your local library. If they don't have what you like let them know.
- Read some of the thousands of free ebooks available in the MobileRead site
- Purchase from indie authors that are already selling at and below the $5.99 price
- Share books with your friends

In a personal note to Mr. Sargent. Sir I salute you! I have a really bad cramp in my hand and can only extend one finger, but still I salute you.