03-01-2011, 06:11 PM | #76 | ||||
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I have no idea how the schedule of payments works out. However I cannot imagine that a retailer is paying for a block of 10,000 copies of a title, selling those copies off, ordering more if too many are sold, and returning unsold copies. Quote:
I mean that one argument is that retailers are "better" at pricing goods than the publishers. However, the publishers will end up with as good, if not better, data than any single retailer, and should do about as good a job adjusting prices. One major difference in incentives is that retailers will want to slash prices on certain books as loss leaders, and the publishers believe this is devaluing their product. Quote:
We all seem to readily accept the premise that a small publisher who uses CreateSpace can set their own price, and hold to that same price on Pubit, Smashwords, Scribd and any other such outlet. (Also on services like Wiiware, Android Market, App Store, etc etc). Why is it OK for a small publisher -- including a self-published book that lands on the best seller lists -- but dastardly and unacceptable for a large one? Conversely, why is it OK for Apple to set a flat cost of $1 per song? Was it wrong to give the record companies some latitude on price? And why isn't price the business of the publisher, when the retailers are destroying the value of their product with discounts and when disintermediation is a common practice? Quote:
Ultimately the problem isn't really "manufacturers setting prices." The problem is that there is a perception (only partly based on reality) that agency pricing = higher prices. If agency pricing resulted in lower prices for new books, I'm convinced that no one would care in the slightest. |
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03-01-2011, 06:21 PM | #77 | |
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It feels like you're talking about first sale rights? Or something similar? Are companies like Amazon still ordering ebooks from publishers at set prices? Rather than just acting as a marketing facade? I can't imagine that's occuring, what are you talking about? |
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03-01-2011, 06:26 PM | #78 | |
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Why do I say this? Because the online business model of large publishers seems to follow exactly the same general patterns: competitive advantages don't come from the innovation, the ingenuity or the special capabilities of the large publishers, but from state-granted privileges. |
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03-01-2011, 06:31 PM | #79 |
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Sad day indeed
I own a number of books from Vintage which is owned by RH. I had been contemplating re-buying them as ebooks but no longer.
My issue is not with Agency Model and my issue with price is limited to how good a value proposition a book is. I will pay a higher price if the book is worth that to me. My bigger issue is that ebook prices do not appear to make sense to me in relation to pbooks. For most books I buy, paperbacks are priced cheaper. The publishers have done an awful job of explaining why I need to pay a higher price for ebooks. As many on MR have argued, the price of a book is related to notional value for the most part. The medium has limited impact. Where medium is concerned, the common argument peddled on MR is that ebooks are perpetual and so should cost more but that is not the case. NOBODY - not the publisher, not the retailer - guarantees ebooks against technological obsoletion. If support for the format or DRM I bought with expires, that book is as gone as a damaged or lost pbook. As far as the convenience goes, the compactness of an ebook library is offset by lamentable technology, the price of that technology, (replacing readers - most people forget that since ereaders are relatively new), change in ownership rules (no resale) etc. This is why I feel that as an ebook adopter, the publishers are trying to unfairly milk me for more while offering less. Last edited by Kitabi; 03-01-2011 at 06:34 PM. |
03-01-2011, 06:32 PM | #80 |
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Well, we can already see the effects on availability at smaller retailers.
For the past couple of weeks, a large chunk of Fictionwise's new offerings in the secure column were authors I recognized as being from Random House imprints. They had stuff by Anne McCaffrey, Barbara Hambly, Barry Hughart, etc., and the list was generally much longer than the MultiFormat offerings in the left-hand column. This week, there's a lonely single Harlequin sitting in the Secure new releases column and all the above authors have disappeared entirely from the catalogue. Kind of scorched earth, really. |
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03-01-2011, 06:34 PM | #81 | |
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What they want to do is protect their margins. Hardcovers are high-margin sales, and paperbacks are low margins. An ebook at $14 is much more profitable than one at $10 (and no, a boost in sales numbers do not necessarily offset the lost profits). That's pretty much why they jumped on agency pricing, and stopped delaying ebook releases -- because they knew that by pricing ebooks higher, they could maintain decent margins, then reduce the prices 6-12 months later to boost sales again. Some smaller and/or international publishers may still be nervous about ebooks. However the industry pretty thoroughly realized that ebooks were going to dominate the market, and many believe that will be the case in 5 years or less. |
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03-01-2011, 07:13 PM | #82 |
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03-01-2011, 08:47 PM | #83 | |
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03-01-2011, 08:53 PM | #84 |
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No. What I keep seeing over and over are really old books for $10. I was interested in picking up Dashiell Hammett novels. At first I thought they would be public domain, but not only are they under copyright, but they have the audacity to charge $10 for books 80 years old. I see this time and again with the classics still in print. I was a person that spent hundreds of dollars a year at Fictionwise, but I have spent a grand total of $0 in 2011 and I don't see that changing.
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03-01-2011, 10:09 PM | #85 |
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Rick Riordan's books have dropped in price-his latest novels, Red Pyramid and The Last Hero are still $10.99 on iBooks, and $9.34 on Kindle, but his earlier books are only $6.99 on iBooks, and in fact The Lightning Thief has dropped to $5.00 on Kindle. Hardcover of Lightning Thief is $11.63, and the paperback is $7.99. I think I paid $7.99 for the eBook.
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03-01-2011, 10:58 PM | #86 |
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Yes.
It usually takes about a year for the price changes to kick in, and it's often cued to paperback release timing. I don't usually buy books that are either brand new or over $12, but a few from my collection have popped up, and yes they're all agency priced: "Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives" and "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" were each $14 when I purchased it last year, and are now $10. Other books I've purchased have gone down by $1-2. A quick check of agency-priced books that are now $10 or less, that were on the HC best seller list early last year: "Lost Symbol" (Dan Brown), "Impact" (Preston), "The Last Song" (Sparks), "The Honor of Spies" (Griffin). So, yeah. I can't definitively say how many agency books are priced lower, but it's definitely happening. |
03-01-2011, 11:00 PM | #87 |
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03-01-2011, 11:09 PM | #88 |
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Interesting! Hyperion is owned by Disney, but distributed by Harper Collins. So Apple's iBooks store doesn't require all books to be under agency pricing, it seems.
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03-01-2011, 11:11 PM | #89 | |
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03-01-2011, 11:31 PM | #90 | |
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Walmart is a special case. Their market power is so high it practically borders on monopolistic. If for some reason Target went under, they'd have virtually no competition left on a national level. The biggest problem with the agency scheme is that it is allowing all of the big publishing houses to set higher prices on books. They are basically agreeing between each other to charge higher prices to customers, while their agency schemes prevent any flexibility on the part of retailers, and restrict the retailer's right to sell product however they can make a profit. So they are agreeing between themselves to set up a scheme that keeps prices artificially high and that prevents free-market competition on the part of retailers. Sounds like a price-fixing ring to me. It's the MAP scheme all over again. It's like living in a world where every company is Apple or (shudder) Bose. Imagine every product at MSRP and retailers are unable to adjust prices. If they want to do away with retailers and become the retailer themselves, fine. But setting up a scheme where the manufacturer (or publisher) can tell the retailer what they can sell, how they can sell it, and at what prices, is not my idea of a free market economics. Last edited by GreenMonkey; 03-01-2011 at 11:33 PM. |
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