Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom
On the other hand, Big 6 do have a monopoly on pbooks, and acted as a cartel to preserve their monopoly and raise prices outside of market forces.
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I think the Big 6 would be surprised to learn that they are a cartel/monopoly and have such market power. In the United States, nearly 1.3 million books were published in 2011. Of that number, about 225,000 were published by the Big 6.
Also, in 2011, there were more than 50,000 "traditional" publishers in the United States and several hundred thousand self-publishers.
In addition, to say that the Big 6 "have a monopoly on pbooks" implies (assumes?) that 1 pbook can readily be substituted for another pbook, something that few readers or authors would agree on. As is often said, even here on MR, if I want to read Stephen King I want to read Stephen King, not Dean Koontz. Consequently, in the microsense every publisher and self-publisher is a monopolist because more than one publisher does not publish a title in a market.