Quote:
Originally Posted by carld
Because the ebook market is still growing rapidly. Once the industry matures negatives like agency pricing will become much more important. We aren't anywhere close to that yet.
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The problem here is not really agency pricing: it is that the publishers want to price ebooks so as to protect the price of hardcover bestsellers. This makes perfect business sense from the POV of a company that makes 90 per cent of its profits from pbooks, and most of that 90 per cent from HC bestseller sales. This wont change until the profits from ebook sales cross the 50 per cent mark. Only then will you see favorable ebook pricing from major publishers.
This is obviously not a recipe for happiness for ebook consumers. Unfortunately this will be state of the ebook universe for some time yet.