According to reports published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and BusinessWeek, two leading publishers - News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers and CBS’ Simon & Schuster - have struck strategic e-book pricing-related deals with Amazon. com; whereby most of the new best sellers will cost between $12.99 and $14.99, while some will be priced at Amazon’s $9.99 standard.

Furthermore, BusinessWeek also cited a Sony letter which revealed that, Thursday onwards, Macmillan, Hachette Book Group, and Penguin Group will also begin setting their own prices for e-books.

Amazon has reportedly halted the heavy markdown of e-book best-sellers in the new pricing agreements largely because of the forthcoming April 3-launch of the Apple iPad – the much-awaited tablet computer, and a potential rival of the Amazon Kindle e-reader. For providing e-book titles on the iPad, Apple has inked deals with five of the six leading publishers.

Noting that the deal with Amazon has come after months of negotiations with the online retailer, Brian Murray – CEO of HarperCollins Publishers - said: “Our digital future is more assured today than it was two months ago.”

Thus far, for the November 2007-launched Kindle e-reader, Amazon has been pricing the best sellers in digital format at $9.99 – a decision which publishers have been objecting to, on the grounds that the low price gives buyers a misconception about the actual worth of the books.