I expect that this is the first step on the road to instituting agency pricing for pbooks, too. If we accept the rationale for agency pricing of ebooks (i.e., to prevent the devaluing of the content by selling at too low a price), then it stands to reason that pbooks are next. After all, what is being sold in pbooks is the content, not the covering, and supposedly there is no content difference between p- and ebook versions. Consequently, selling of the pbook for less than the ebook price devalues the pbook content.
Agency selling of pbooks could also solve some other problems that publishers face, particularly returns and overlarge print runs that result in remainders and a large secondary market.
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