Several parties have held talks to settle the potential anti-trust case, the paper cited the people as saying. It added that a successful settlement could lead to cheaper e-books for consumers.

However, not all publishers are in settlement discussions, the Journal said.

The five publishers identified in the Journal report are Simon & Schuster Inc, a unit of CBS Corp, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA), Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH and HarperCollins Publishers Inc, a unit of News Corp. News Corp also owns the Wall Street Journal.