This is an article about a lawsuit that has been filed by the ABA regarding the price war between WalMart and Amazon (and now, apparently, Target) on bestsellers this winter. Of course, independent booksellers won't be able to compete, and that's sad, but I can't afford $35.00 for a book. If I want to read a book before it comes out in paperback, I put myself on the reserve list at the library and wait a few months.

I took advantage of the deal and bought Stephen King's "Under the Dome," a hardback priced at $35.00, for $8.98 on Walmart.com, and got free shipping. It was a ridiculously good deal--should I have passed it up and spent $35 I could ill afford at a local bookstore, assuming that there are any left (bookstores, not books)?

I understand that the demise of local booksellers is bad, just like the failure of any small local business is bad, but unfortunately, in this economy, that's just the way it works. If I want to keep reading, and I do, I either read books I already own, go to the library, or buy books at the used bookstore. Even in a good economy, I don't buy hardbacks at full price. The WSJ article says:

Although independent booksellers typically stock only a smattering of best sellers, the steep discounting of such well-known authors ultimately could cause consumers to question whether all hardcover books are priced too high, at $25 or so.

I don't think the steep discounting is the cause of people thinking $25 is too much for a hardcover book, people already think it's too much. I haven't seen any sales figures, but just from my own perspective, $35 is ridiculously expensive for a book. Granted, "Under the Dome" is something like 1700 pages, so it's not something I could read in an evening, so in that case, yes, it might be worth it to me for a few weeks' worth of entertainment. But a regular-length hardback? I'm willing to wait a couple of months to get it from the library.

I haven't started King's opus yet, mostly because it's too heavy to carry around. He required his publisher to delay the release of the Kindle version until Christmas Eve so that ebook sales wouldn't hurt sales of the physical book.

In an interview, Mr. King said that he wanted to delay the e-book edition in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.

"I never thought we'd see people preordering a copy for $8.98," he said. "My thinking was to give bookstores a chance to make some money."

Sounds like the "price war" caught him by surprise, too.

I plan to buy the Kindle version when it comes out later this month. Since it will probably take me a month or more to read it, it will be a lot easier to carry around.