Amazon and Wal-Mart are engaging in a price war for some “highly anticipated hardback titles” with prices at both retailers dropping below $10.00. Wal-Mart is also offering free shipping.

For the details, see Book wars! Wal-Mart, Amazon slash costs from MSNBC and Book price war: Wal-Mart vs. Amazon.com from ABC.

I ran across these links on Friday’s Publib list digest. Here’s a link to the thread.

Especially interesting were the stock price reactions for not just Wal-Mart (up) and Amazon (down slightly), but also for Borders (down) and Barnes & Noble (down), both of which seem unlikely to be able to compete with the two behemoths.

Commented Margaret Neill, a librarian from Los Cruces, New Mexico:

And libraries have dropped their prices even lower! 🙂

How true! Trust a librarian to put things into their proper perspective!