Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm not sure that I agree with you. That's exactly the reason that many European countries have fixed prices for books: the benefit for society of keeping small independent bookshops in business is reckoned to outweigh the benefit for the individual consumer of (say) supermarkets selling only the best-seller list at low prices.
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However, agency pricing has *not* worked to support small independent ebook stores. Fictionwise was crippled; AllRomanceEbooks lost access to the agency books for almost a year; the EZReader ebook store is a flop.
Also, when ebook prices are fixed but pbook prices aren't, consumers are stuck with the ridiculous situation of pbooks often priced lower than the ebooks, which leaves them confused, suspicious and angry at the entire publishing industry, which is not good for anyone's business.
It's possible that industry-wide price-fixing would benefit smaller stores and indie publishers, but there's no movement in the US to allow that.