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Originally Posted by stonetools
From the point of view of an economist, there is simply zero evidence that agency pricing is hurting Ebook sales,
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From the point of view of authors who have ebooks available both through agency pricing and their own releases, agency pricing is costing them a lot of money. The fact that *all* kinds of ebooks are selling more than they used to doesn't mean that agency pricing is good.
Do you really think Konrath's self-published titles are of tremendously higher quality than the ones still locked into agency publishers? That the mainstream publishers who have the rights to some of Rusch's novels somehow just picked the worst of her writing to keep in print, to such an extent that an unadvertised novella with a bad cover can sell ten times as well as an agency book?
Authors who have books available in both price systems: agency, and self-chosen, keep saying that agency pricing is horrible, and they make more money on $3 self-releases than $12 publishers' novels.
If agency pricing is better *for publishers* but worse for authors, that's not a mark in its favor.
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Allegations that publishers colluded to fix prices are just that- allegations. Allegations aren't evidence.
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They're allegations backed with some evidence, like Jobs' public statement that books won't be cheaper at Amazon than the iBookstore -- and that they'll be in the $12-15 range.
The Justice Dep't doesn't investigate without evidence. Allegations may be all the general public has, but there's already noteworthy amounts of facts that support the accusation of illegal price-fixing, or it wouldn't be getting any official attention.