Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
The publishers were responding to a rogue client, Amazon, who was selling the entire best seller's list at a loss in order to dominate the market. It was not in the publisher's best interest for this to continue.
They gave Amazon a choice. Either allow the publishers pricing power -- or -- Amazon would not be able to sell ebooks until LATER -- exactly the way paper back editions are handled. You wanna sell our books at paper back prices? Fine, then we'll only allow you to sell them during the paper back time window.
Why did Amazon choose to give up pricing power? Because Amazon knew that people, the new hard back book people (the one's who matter), would happily buy ebooks at $12.99 - $14.99 which is several dollars cheaper than the hard back books. If Amazon wasn't selling those books, then Apple and B&N would putting Amazon at a competitive disadvantage.
And we can see that for the most part, ebooks have indeed tracked paper versions. New ebooks start higher, ebooks where there is a paper back already out, are priced lower. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions.
The reality is that ebooks are cheaper than paper books and that the "paper back price" comes to ebooks if you just WAIT -- like paper back book buyers always have.
Those who want paper back prices on new release books -- just don't matter. Really. Never have.
Lee
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Amazon was not the only one that was selling best sellers for $9.99. The other sites were as well. I didn't see Amazon lower the price below $9.99 to respond.
Kobo had a presentation where they showed sales volumes at different price point and it clearly showed that the most volume was moving at the $10 price point.
This wasn't about Amazon trying to dominate the market by selling below cost. It was about Amazon demonstrating what the price point had to be and they were willing to take a temporary loss to show the publishers their price had to drop.