DOJ suing Apple over ebooks.

[mrscoach]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/atr/s...ch-120423.html
Department of Justice antitrust chief, Sharis A. Pozen




with every retailers forcing to keep 30% mark up, there is no competition on prices.


The Witness by Nora Roberts
Penguin Publishing

Kindle: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
ibookstore: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
Nook: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
GooglePlay: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)

The Innocent by David Baldacci
Hachette Book Group

Kindle: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
ibookstore: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
Nook: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)
GooglePlay: $14.99 (forced to keep 30%)


If Amazon only want to take 10% (and pass the 20% mark up to the consumers in the form of lower prices), why did the publishers force Amazon to take the whole 30%?

I don't want to sound snarky toward you, so do not take it that way. Do you honestly NOT know why the publishers decided to 'force Amazon to take the whole 30%'? I can't tell if you were joking or asking a serious question (so hard to do with just the printed word). If you truly do not know why the publishers did what they did just read this thread all the way through and look for the clues, or do a search for 'agency pricing' right here on the boards. A TON of posts will turn up.

Basically it boils down to the publishers ho's wanted to protect their hardback book market and hated that Amazon discounted SOME of their books, thus devaluing (in the their eyes, at least) the book. There is more to it, and Apple plays a part, having suggested agency pricing in the first place, but you get the idea.

The publishers forced ALL retailers to sell their books for the same price, no discounting on ebooks at all, though they were still free to have sales on pbooks. Sounds fair, huh? (that part was snark)

[sabredog]

Another great article from Teleread.

http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/in-do...d-to-innovate/

In part it echoes my belief that the BPH's are terrified of change in this big new world of digital economy and are fighting desperate rearguard actions to preserve the old ways and thus the old monopoly.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

It also didn't help that B&N yanked all of the Agency 6 books even before they anounced the pricing collusion scheme.

But I was happy to shop the drm free multifomat books until they proceeded to get rid of the great deals & micropay system. After that it just wasn't worth it anymore. But until that happened I dropped quite a bit of money at FW.

I have no problems with Amazon, but I absolutely HATE B&N for what they did to FW. So if they go under, I will throw a party.

FW's business model could not work with agency eBooks. B&N knew this and did what it had to. Once the price fix six is made to give up it's agency ways, we'll see if FW can go back to it's previous business model.