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Originally Posted by leebase
Any numbers to back up your opinion? Of course, unless you are inside the inner circle at Amazon or one of the publishers, you don't have any hard numbers....neither do I.
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Amazon is apparently on track to sell 8 million Kindles this year. This after an estimated 3 million last year.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...es-2010-12.DTL
This is on top of the ~12 million iPads that will be sold this year. That's a whole lot more devices on the market that can read books. And I haven't even gone into the claimed 18K Nook Colors per day or other eInk devices.
My point is the publishers know what their sales are with Agency pricing. What they don't know is whether those numbers are better or worse than they'd get without Agency pricing, because the market is changing so radically nearly quarter by quarter. They can't judge by 2009 numbers.
At the end of Q1 this year, before the iPad and the advent of Agency, there were (and this is a semi-educated WAG) between 6 and 7 million non-phone devices out there capable of reading books. The number now is at least triple. My gut says if your book sales aren't matching that trend, you're falling behind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
They also have an extreme economic incentive to maximize profits. They have a track record that at least has allowed them to stay in business and grow to being one of the top 6 publishers in the world.
So....I'm still betting on the publishers. They successfully established a much higher price for hard back books than they are asking for ebooks. I see little evidence that the folks on this forum (including me) happen to be a LOT better about running a book business.
I think that the market that can afford $139 to $500 for ereading devices can handle the difference between $10 and $13 or $15 for the price of an new release, popular ebook.
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Here's the problem with what the publishers are doing now versus what they've been doing for the rest of their existence. They have never before sold directly to the reader or controlled pricing. Their customer, forever, has been the retailer (or, even worse, the wholesaler.) Now, with Agency, they're selling direct to you and me. And, frankly, they're not equipped to handle that relationship.
If they did, they'd be reacting to the report linked just above about how people aren't flocking to these Agency-priced books.
Time will tell, but I'm not betting on the existing publishers. I simply think they're too entrenched in their old way of doing things to successfully adapt to a completely different marketplace.