This tantrum is just a badly-thought out PR ploy.
Much noise, little impact.
Their "policy" would sound a lot more principled if they *also* refuse to carry them on B&N.com. As is, they are telling the world that the books will actually be worth selling.
They seem to think that Amazon will be oh-so-hurt by lost sales at *their* storefronts they will cave in and change their entire business model to cater to them.
Uhm, not going to happen.
More, even if they *did*, it would do Nook no good. The Kindle version would still be cheaper. After all, Amazon publishing wouldn't offer them up under Agency pricing. They'd just set list price at $30, wholesale them for $15 to B&N and Kindle, and sell them for $10 on Kindle.
Obviously, they don't understand what Amazon Publishing is about.
But then, neither do Amazon's critics from the old-school publishing houses.
Amazon Publishing is built off the premise that ebooks come first: that ebooks are the core market for certain types of books, and that print editions for those books will be supplementary and, yes, *secondary* to that core market.
In that model, print editions will be for libraries, luddites, and casual buyers. And the casual buyers will be the bulk of the print sales. And, of course, B&N has no lock on casual buyers, neither does WalMart or CVS or Walgreens of any of the supermarket chains. Casual buyers will buy the book wherever they can get it if the buzz is enough to get them to take note of it in the first place.
Other buyers? Most of those have long since moved their buying online (which is why B&N.com *will* be selling Amazon books) and to ebooks (which is why B&N is throwing this tantrum).
Now, will denying their storefronts to Amazon books scare off *some* authors? Maybe.
But anybody signing with an Amazon Imprint *already* knows some spiteful retailers won't carry the book. That is why Amazon is paying the higher advances and royalties; *they* are the ones carrying the risk of lost sales, not the authors. Amazon is betting that, over the long haul, ebook-first publishing will dominate the traditional model and authors signing with them should be doing so with the understanding that the bulk of their sales will come from the pool of 20-30 million Kindle reader owners and the unspecified amount of Kindle app users on other devices.
As so often happens (KSO, anybody?), critics are reading the Amazon play exactly backwards: Amazon publishing isn't about taking over the print book business. It is about *servicing* the Kindle installed base and making them stay in the Kindle garden. It is about building the *next* publishing industry a little bit sooner.
The print editions? A side bet, really. In the tech business it would be called legacy customer support. Amazon publishing does print editions *in case* there is some money there and because no smart business lets customers walk away and take their money elsewhere. (Which is what B&N is doing. If an Amazon title becomes a monster and Walmart has a defacto print exclusive on it...)
I'm think B&N over-values their stores and they have drawn a line in the sand that might just cost them dearly if one of the Amazon titles, now or down the road, actually becomes popular. If the next HUNGER GAMES or TWILIGHT comes from Amazon, B&N is really going to be hurting from this unnecessary tantrum.