Random House comments on Amazon Pricing

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

If Macmillan doesn't set prices, how can they be blamed for not lowering them?

That's not even the point. MacMillan wants to RAISE prices to match the hardback price.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by starrigger

And before you cheer Random House too much, they're the company that made a huge grab for ebook rights in old contracts--trying to tie up books whose authors could try to do the above.

another article about that here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...096154756.html

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by starrigger

And before you cheer Random House too much, they're the company that made a huge grab for ebook rights in old contracts--trying to tie up books whose authors could try to do the above.

The default position is multibillion dollar media company = bad. I have never seen any evidence historically to refute this.

[jmaloney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's not even the point. MacMillan wants to RAISE prices to match the hardback price.

That's a straight up lie.

Macmillan wants to price ebooks simultaneously with hardcovers at about 50% of the hardcover price (hardcovers typically have a list price between $25 and $30; Macmillan will be pricing ebooks between $12 and $15 on the date of release).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jmaloney

That's a straight up lie.

Macmillan wants to price ebooks simultaneously with hardcovers at about 50% of the hardcover price (hardcovers typically have a list price between $25 and $30; Macmillan will be pricing ebooks between $12 and $15 on the date of release).

That's more than $9.99 unless I can't do math, it's flat out truth.
List price means nothing anyway. I'm talking actual sale price.

Besides it hasn't even happened, how do you know what they are going to do. Hell they are already talking about not even releasing the ebook til much later. Clearly they don't want their ebooks in libraries. What else?

MacMillan is the BAD guy here. Not Amazon. Not Random House.

[jmaloney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's more than $9.99 unless I can't do math, it's flat out truth.
List price means nothing anyway. I'm talking actual sale price.

Besides it hasn't even happened, how do you know what they are going to do. Hell they are already talking about not even releasing the ebook til much later. Clearly they don't want their ebooks in libraries. What else?

Clearly you're not actually reading what they're saying.

Here's the exact quote from John Sargent:

Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition.

You got one thing right: at the time of initial release, the ebooks will be priced higher than $9.99. You have, however, completely, 100% misrepresented everything else about the deal:

1. Ebooks will not be sold at the same price as hardcovers.
2. There will be no windowing, except in rare instances.
3. The price of the ebooks will decrease over time.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jmaloney

Clearly you're not actually reading what they're saying.

Here's the exact quote from John Sargent:



You got one thing right: at the time of initial release, the ebooks will be priced higher than $9.99. You have, however, completely, 100% misrepresented everything else about the deal:

1. Ebooks will not be sold at the same price as hardcovers.
2. There will be no windowing, except in rare instances.
3. The price of the ebooks will decrease over time.

Clearly I am.

Clearly you have bought into it.

[jmaloney]

Ah, I see. We're basing this on speculation, rather than facts. I get it now.

I could just as easily say "How do you know Amazon won't just sell them at $9.99 anyway." But I forgot that we're trying make Macmillan look bad, regardless of reality.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jmaloney

Ah, I see. We're basing this on speculation, rather than facts. I get it now.

I could just as easily say "How do you know Amazon won't just sell them at $9.99 anyway." But I forgot that we're trying make Macmillan look bad, regardless of reality.

Someone certainly is since it has not happened yet.

But the fact is MacMillan is clearly doing everything it can to NOT SELL ebooks. That is very clear to me. And no you can't say that about Amazon if the Agency Model is in place because MacMillan will set the price not amazon.

But I understand, you are doing everything you can to defend MacMillan, it's okay.

Please feel free to try and convince me MacMillan is doing anything good for consumers or authors because they are not. They are only trying to force everyone around them to protect their dinosaur eggs. But you know what, it's not going to work, because the asteroid is coming....

[jmaloney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And no you can't say that about Amazon if the Agency Model is in place because MacMillan will set the price not amazon.

So what you're saying is that you believe that Amazon will abide by the terms of their agreement, but not Macmillan?

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by starrigger

And before you cheer Random House too much, they're the company that made a huge grab for ebook rights in old contracts--trying to tie up books whose authors could try to do the above.

Right. I don't care about anything else as regards them. If they want me to spend a single penny on their books, they need to refund the authors concerned every penny they've tried to steal from them, and issue a public apology.

I expect it'll be a cold day in heck before I buy a Random House book *new* again.

[Mr. Goodbar]

I wonder if these agency agreements allow coupons or discounts to be applied. If yes, Amazon could circumvent the whole thing by offering ebook coupons or credits against future purchases similar to what fictionwise does with their credits.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Someone certainly is since it has not happened yet.

You're both speculating. That said....

Macmillan has minimal control over pricing at this time. Under ordinary circumstances, they set an ebook cover price and watch retailers slash the price; sometimes methodically, sometimes at random, sometimes not at all. E.g. Tor might price an ebook at $12, expecting Amazon to set the price at $10, and get castigated by readers for its cover pricing.

I might add, reducing prices as demand falls is basic economics. There is absolutely no reason why a publisher would not reduce prices as time goes on, and the demand for a given title slows down. If they were completely insensible to economics, that's how they operated, they would never issue paperbacks.

In fact, it's entirely possible that giving Macmillan more control over ebook pricing will actually encourage them to loosen up a bit. For example, they won't have to delay the release of an ebook release, as they ebook won't be priced so low as to utterly eviscerate hardcover sales.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Please feel free to try and convince me MacMillan is doing anything good for consumers or authors because they are not.

Since you seem to be operating primarily based on cynicism rather than economics, I'm not sure that is possible. Anyway....

Macmillan's job is to sell books, and that's about it. I'll leave it to you to decide if that is or is not "good for consumers."

And what's Amazon's role? To defend consumers? To protect your rights? Hardly. A few weeks ago, plenty of people were castigating Amazon for trying to corner the ebook market, for using DRM, for not using ePub, for deleting books off of users' devices, and a whole host of other evils.

I.e. Amazon's role here is nearly identical to Macmillan's. They both want to sell books, and they both want control over pricing. I for one don't view either side as "evil" or morally suspect on this basis, it's just the nature of the business. In a year or so, I doubt anyone other than top execs at publishers and retailers will even have a reason to care about all this mess.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

I wonder if these agency agreements allow coupons or discounts to be applied. If yes, Amazon could circumvent the whole thing by offering ebook coupons or credits against future purchases similar to what fictionwise does with their credits.

Perhaps, but a) that will be extremely clumsy and inconvenient, b) publishers could easily retaliate by taking their sweet time to release the Amazon ebook (while putting out the iBook right away), c) there could be numerous acounting consequences, and so forth.

Plus, it's bad business to say to your suppliers in one breath that you will abide by the contracts and honor their pricing demands, and then overtly refuse to do so.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I might add, reducing prices as demand falls is basic economics. There is absolutely no reason why a publisher would not reduce prices as time goes on, and the demand for a given title slows down. If they were completely insensible to economics, that's how they operated, they would never issue paperbacks.

You're conflating two issues. One is that a given format of a book does not currently, ever, change in price. Hence while there is "no reason" (except they claim there is, the laughable one of ISBN numbers) to change prices, they currently simply don't do it.

Then there is a separate issue of different markets for the paperback and hardback versions of books. This is much more analogous to, say, Blu-Ray and DVD versions of a film than to changes within a single version of a product. One is considered a premium version...