Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Do you honestly believe these large book publishers don't understand the realities you talk about? That there is competition for the book dollar from libraries, used books -- not to mention Tv, Movies, Facebook and the like.
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Actually, no, I don't think they understand the realities, and here's the primary reason why:
eBooks are an incredible growth market right now. So, an Agency publisher sees fantastic growth and thinks the Agency model is working.
But, given how fast the _entire_ market is growing, how do they know that instead of 200% growth, they might have seen 280% without Agency? They don't, and can't. They've completely missed the opportunity, because these growth rates cannot be sustained for long.
Now, remember the original deal with Apple was for a year. We don't know what's going to happen come April (again.)
I'm fully expecting one of the Agency 5 publishers to switch back to the wholesale model right when the growth rate peaks and say "See! Agency works!"
And they still won't get it. They only way they can really be sure right now is to compare themselves to Random House, but their egos are so big they all think they do things differently and each of their businesses are unique.