Quote:
Originally Posted by Andanzas
Is anybody happy with the agency model? I mean, besides the big five.
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I am. I've got one book out, so obviously I'm not a big player in the market.
However, I can set pretty much any price I like. I can find whatever number maximizes my sales/profit and price in accordance to that.
Amazon has the freedom to set their cut however they like and use that to leverage the publisher into a set of prices.
If you price from 2.99-9.99, you get 70% of the price.
If you price below 2.99 or above 9.99, you get 35%.
Now, when you see ebook prices higher than that and with a pbook at a price lower, you see publishers shooting themselves in the foot to try and keep pbooks alive.
As a side note: Technically a free market is any situation with near unlimited buyers and sellers, and no external body setting the price of any given item, thus allowing the "true price" of an item to be found. Ebay is probably as close as most of us will ever get to one.
Agency pricing, where the agent can set whatever cut he likes, and the producer can set any price he likes only stops being a free market if no one else can sell the good in question. So, for any given book, it's not a free market, but for books as a category, it is.