Quote:
Originally Posted by xianfox
If you're unwilling to share the publisher's name with me, I'd at least be curious to know if they serve a particular niche market and what that is.
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I don't particularly want to identify them. They do have a good product and serve a valuable niche market. I'll say they are a small publishing house specializing in re-issuing out-of-print mysteries for very reasonable prices. There are literally hundreds of places like that, heh.
I exchanged several emails with them, I wanted to understand their rationale. They were tending to argue from authority (not a good move, I almost always reject such things). I don't think they are afraid of e-books per se, just the chain stores overpowering the little guys, and I have a lot of sympathy for that. There may be some fear of new technology, as well (who remembers slide rules? Or who made them?).
Their claim is that for every 100 books that Amazon sells, they could sell 1,000 through independent sellers, but the indies won't stock his books since Amazon (or Borders, B&N, etc) sells them for less. I can't reject this out of hand. My own experience is that I end up at Amazon (and abebooks.com) because the chain stores don't have the books I want, the nearest indie store for mysteries is 200 miles away and gasoline is $4.00 a gallon.