HarperCollins returns to Full Agency pricing

[jgaiser]

http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.c...o-full-agency/

Well, good luck to them...

[Apache]

Apache

[Lynx-lynx]

Volume sales doesn't seem as important to them as per item sale price .....

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.c...o-full-agency/

Well, good luck to them...

Is there a link that doesn't require a log in to see the full article?

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Is there a link that doesn't require a log in to see the full article?

Nate's posted an Article on it (8 April):
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...-as-next-week/

[AnemicOak]

Interesting. So I guess they'll stop discounting for direct sales as well? Sometimes they themselves discount more (on hc.com & harlequin.com) than Amazon, Google, etc.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Interesting. So I guess they'll stop discounting for direct sales as well? Sometimes they themselves discount more (on hc.com & harlequin.com) than Amazon, Google, etc.

Agency pricing doesn't prevent the publisher from discounting, just the retailer.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Volume sales doesn't seem as important to them as per item sale price .....

It's all about protecting print prices. The problem is that if the print runs go too small, the profit margins for print drop dramatically. Once you've sold enough ebooks to pay for the formatting (and it's practically free with some layout tools), there's never any addition costs for additional printings.

[Apache]

Dinosaur, Pea Brain and Extinct.
Apache

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Apache

Dinosaur, Pea Brain and Extinct.

LOL. It's hard to understand how most book publishers haven't learned any lessons from the experience of the music industry's mishandling of new media at least a decade ago.

[BearMountainBooks]

Most of the book publishers seem to be trying to get readers used to the idea of higher-priced books. And in the case of HC, I think they do want to control the "deals" and when they happen. I suspect they will still offer deals, but less of them and timed to be convenient to themselves.

Honestly, the majority of readers don't buy by publisher name, they buy by author. So the readers will either take a pass and get books at the library if they cost too much, wait for a sale, buy used or just pay the price.

Some readers have converted over to shopping by price even for books. Those readers are more likely to follow places like ereaderiq and wait for sales or find something else to read.

So I think. But I make stuff up for a living, so I might be wrong.

[Sydney's Mom]

Well, I just bought $40 of used pbooks because I thought the ebooks were priced too high. Most of the time, I would just look for something else to read (I certainly have enough in my TBR list), but as noted, this time I wanted a particular author, and didn't like the price. I could have requested the books in electronic form from the library, which has been pretty good (excellent, actually) in filling requests. I am one of those "infinitesimal" readers who read more than 2 books a month (actually, I read more than 2 books a week) so I guess my buying patterns don't matter.

[crossi]

I have so many books I want to read bought and not yet bought that I couldn't finish them with a 3 month vacation. I simply don't feel any particular pressure to buy overpriced books when I have so many other books I want to read. I've dropped a number of previous favorite authors because of prices I found to be unreasonable. Funny thing, after a year or so, those authors I used to follow and keep track of new releases just fall completely off my radar. I don't think HarperCollins strategy is going to work well for them or their authors.

[Atunah]

As someone that reads a lot of HC Avon line, this all baffles me. They have had so many sales lately, I get 100's of price reductions in the email through ereaderiq. Last couple of weeks freebies, 100's of books on sale for 1.99 and .99. This isn't new and this is coming from Avon (HarperCollins). They even put it on their site in the past as a theme sale. I have purchased a lot of books on sale by them. Also for some time their new releases are an average of 4.99-5.99. Paperbacks at 7.99. This was the same almost on their own site.

So where exactly do they want to take this, all ebooks back to 7.99 same as paper? If so, instead of me buying a book for .99-5.99 or so, I'll get the books from the library or on my Scribd subscription. Scribd leaves out new stuff, but libraries often have it. So they will be making less money overall.

[pwalker8]

Once again, agency pricing doesn't mean that all ebooks are $8 or never on sale, it simply means that the publisher controls the price, not the retailer. I'm sure the HC will continue to have sales.