Amazon and French-owned publisher Hachette have reached a new deal to sell print books and ebooks after a drawn out and contentious fight over terms that saw the ecommerce site delay shipments of some of the Hachette titles and made others unavailable for pre-order.

Hachette will set ebook prices under the new agreement and will "benefit from better terms when it delivers lower prices for readers," the companies said in a joint statement on Thursday, reports Shannon Bond, US media and marketing correspondent.

Amazon had been calling for nearly all ebooks to be priced at $9.99 to reflect lower production and distribution costs, and has called for publishers to give authors a larger share of the cover price.

"We are pleased with this new agreement as it includes specific financial incentives for Hachette to deliver lower prices, which we believe will be a great win for readers and authors alike," said David Naggar, vice-president of Amazon's Kindle division.

Michael Pietsch, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, hailed the deal as "great news for writers."

"The new agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners," he said.

The new terms will take effect early next year. The companies said they would immediately resume "normal trading" and that Hachette titles would be "prominently featured in promotions", which will be important to the publisher going into the holiday season.

Last month Simon & Schuster, the publisher owned by CBS, also struck a new agreement with Amazon that allowed the publisher to control pricing of its electronic editions.