[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

What you don't catch, Paul, is that our price is set low -- at 50%, or much less, of the corresponding paperback edition, which is what we can carry without losing money on each sale. Strict Agency 5 fixed-pricing by the bigger publishers sets the bar much higher so that the buyer loses.

That is a quantative difference though, not a qualitative one.
You are saying that their fixed price is bad, but your fixed price is good.

The EZread agreement with us puts the buyer on a win-win. Fair pricing that cannot be cut by the retailer without consultation, but also cannot be increased willy-nilly as Amazon is prone to do with Kindle ebook prices.

If one retailer arbitrarily slashes the ebook price on any of our ebook titles, WE (the publisher) would be in breach of our EZread agreement if we didn't immediately inform them and lower across-the-board cover price to an equal level at their store, too.

But that is because you have chosen to sign these sorts of agreements.
If you hadn't, how would you be hurt by an agreement that gave you fixed royalties of 30% of $5.95, and let the retailers set the prices? Like any other product, you sell at a wholesale price, and let others worry about the retail side.
You get the same amount per book, and there would be competition between retailers. If one wants to put your book on sale, you get more sales, at the same amount per book.
A fixed price that stops the retailer selling to me a lower price is not a win for me. Currently in the UK Amazon are selling eBooks for dramatically less than other retailers, in the order of 50% of the price. Forcing a fixed price means I would pay more for the same book.

So we can offer very low prices on ebooks whereas the bigger players must set the price higher to reflect a smaller saving and (as we also must) to balance the account between ebook and treebook sales to cover other standing costs.

Agency 5, therefore, works for them but not for the consumer. Our much, much lower fixed price, on the other hand, works all round in everyone's favour.

But 'very low' is your opinion of the price, not an objective measure. I'm sure some of the big publishers honestly believe their prices are fair as well, that doesn't change the view from the consumers point of view that contracts have been written to prevent any form of retail competition, to fix prices at a certain level. Hard to find an example where price-fixing helps consumers. (Outside of price-limiting (setting a ceiling) for services from monopolies)