03-13-2010, 06:01 PM | #46 | ||
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03-13-2010, 06:06 PM | #47 |
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Actually, I have seen elsewhere on the internet where they HAVE negotiated that clause. We will see.
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03-13-2010, 06:18 PM | #48 | ||
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And if the publishers had adopted the $10 price point, you probably wouldn't have cared much either. I do concur that agency pricing has one major disadvantage, which is that retailers will apparently have minimal options to discount books or engage in loss-leader practices. So, I'll just wait a few extra months on occasion, unless I really want a book fast. I suspect I'll survive, as will all the other people who proclaim "I have tons of unread books and won't buy ebooks ever again." Quote:
If you're upset by $15 new ebooks, that's one thing. But it is simply incorrect to conflate this with a specific set of anti-competitive practices based on a semantic similarity. |
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03-13-2010, 06:20 PM | #49 | |
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Its not about the price, its the principle of the thing. Those idiots aren't fixing retail prices to do us any favors; the *stated* intent is to raise prices by 30% and see how many suckers fall for the "potential" of lower prices on *some* crappy books. Me, I normally buy 20-30 books a year *plus* all the Baen webscriptions and promo bundles, plus an eARC or two a year. Baen gets to keep my business. The rest can go hang. Note I'm not telling anybody else to follow my example, merely stating my intent. I don'tt tell other people how to waste their money and I expect not to be told how to waste mine. The BPHs are betting enough people will meekly swallow their line that they'll get away with the 30% price rise. Maybe they will, maybe they won't; but *I* am not going to collaborate with people out to rip me off. PS - What if Amazon takes the extra money they are "forced" to make of ebook saless and use it to subsidize Kindle prices to put independent reader vendors out of business? Say they drop Kindle prices to $100 and make the difference up off the 30% higher book prices. Think that makes for a better outcome? Less reader choices and higher book prices? Last edited by fjtorres; 03-13-2010 at 06:26 PM. |
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03-13-2010, 06:24 PM | #50 |
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Agency pricing as "price fixing": Here's a link to a lawyer's opinion. In short: it probably is price-fixing, but thanks to a recent precedent-overturning Supreme Court decision, it will be very hard to get a court to find it illegal price-fixing.
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03-13-2010, 06:33 PM | #51 | |
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'Cuz I don't buy hardbacks or trade paperbacks unless it is an absolute favorite author and I can get a good discount. I read the blog post linked here - he's not promising the ebooks will always be a little lower than the print price. And he seems to be hinting that many of them will never be at or less than the price of the mass market paperbacks. Do I want the authors harmed by this? Of course not. But I will not be strong-armed by publishers simply because I do not have 1 more spare foot of space in my home for print books. Or if I just prefer digital over print. I spent over $2000 on ebooks last year alone (horrifying truth discovered when I did my taxes). The library can have the funds I would have spent on the ones I want, but are priced at $15. I'll hit the library. Last edited by FizzyWater; 03-13-2010 at 06:54 PM. Reason: forgot to add the link, deleted too much of original quote |
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03-13-2010, 06:43 PM | #52 |
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Kali, why are you ignoring the issues of Apple pricing benefits from their negotion? Is that ok with you, that Amazon (or anyone else, for that matter)should not be able to price ebook bestsellers at $9.99, but Apple can? Please enlighten me, I've tried to follow a lot of your arguements on the publishers and drm, but most of the time I just don't get it.
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03-13-2010, 07:47 PM | #53 |
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Sorry, Kali, I didn't mean to pick on you personally. But these issues DO affect a lot of us, and in a negative way. A lot of the rest of us are not in the nirvana that you seem to be, whether it's DVD's or ebook drm. The issues with drm or copy protection have been going on for ages, and if they haven't affected you in some way in the past, you are either very lucky or in denial.
As for the agency model, I don't want the publishers or authors to go bankrupt. But it is starting to look like politics... and usually behind the politics is money, and greed. |
03-13-2010, 08:37 PM | #54 | |
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And for things a lot closer to the price of a book, my daily groceries, convenience and shopping experience are a lot more important than lowest price. And in comparable, but not identical products, quality gets an important factor in my decision. Of course to determine if a price is fair/reasonable competition is useful. But let's see how the market will react. Why would a discount be more important to a final fair price? Would it make you happy if the publishers just put an artificially high price on the product and allow the agent to sell with a 'discount'? |
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03-13-2010, 10:24 PM | #55 |
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Re: setting the price of a Ford.
Let's use that to understand what was going on. Everyone knows you don't pay the "sticker price" for a car. But depending on your haggling skills and the dealer's need to sell a car -- the price of a car can vary quite a bit. But WHAT IF -- Amazon Motors started selling fully loaded, brand new, Ford Focus's for $10,000. Even though Ford charges Amazon Motors $15,000 for the car, and it's sticker price is $30,000. Why should Ford care if Amazon Motors is willing to lose money on every car it sold? Well...consider that Amazon Motors is the largest seller of Ford cars with near universal name recognition and the ability to sell a car to anybody anywhere? Surely people would be in love with Amazon Motors and the $10,000 price for the car. What about Ford's other dealers? How are they going to feel about Ford allowing this to happen. For this is no "end of the month" sale to meet a sales goal. This is all the top model cars Ford sells -- all the time. How can Ford expect it's other dealers to keep trying to sell Ford cars in competition with Amazon Motors who's willing to lose money? PLUS -- people are getting the idea that $10,000 is the proper price for a brand new Ford car. Ford would know that it wouldn't be long before all the other Ford dealers were run out of business and then Amazon could force Ford to sell it's car for LESS than $10,000. Ok. Make it more clear? $10 has not been the price for new release popular books. McMillian isn't trying to "raise the price of a book" -- they are trying to stop Amazon from turning the entire NYT Bestseller's list into a product that customers are only willing to pay $10 for. No one has been complaining that hardbacks are listed at $25 to $30 and sold "on sale" for $18. People know "I'll wait for the paper back". But with ebooks, Amazon was training people to want the cheap version of the book up front -- destroying the pricing levels that the publishers have already established. Had Amazon not been wiling to change -- the publishers were going to withhold their ebooks just like they withhold the paper backs. The ANGER over this is PROOF that Amazon had indeed been spoiling the market (from the publisher's perspective). Lee |
03-14-2010, 06:07 AM | #56 |
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O.O I've never imagined I would see people defending higher prices for books (NYT Bestsellers, those masterpieces of added-value no less). The day has come.
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03-14-2010, 07:17 AM | #57 | |
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Speaking of high prices, speaking as someone who grew up in a smaller language area books in English, and especially in the USA, are incredibly cheap already. |
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03-14-2010, 08:26 AM | #58 |
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There is no such thing as a "reasonable price" for a book. Reasonable is as low as possible for a buyer and as high as possible for a seller. The labels of "reasonable", "fair" or "adjusted" can't apply to prices, as it would establish that someone else has the capability of exceeding the value-distributing ability of the market, which is false.
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03-14-2010, 08:37 AM | #59 | |
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And even than I would guess for example game theory would result in a (prediction for a) reasonable price. ETA: I think you're also assuming a completely rational consumer, which would not fit at all for books. Last edited by Seli; 03-14-2010 at 08:42 AM. |
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03-14-2010, 08:46 AM | #60 | |
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