Quote:
Originally Posted by Redcard
Then don't buy it?
I don't see the problem here. Businesses may price things as they wish. Consumers may choose to or not choose to buy them. Myself, since it's just a popcorn piece of fiction likely written to a formulaic blue print sent out by a managing editor, I'd probably opt for that $.01 option and then leave it in a bus station when I was done  |
Actually I think that is the key point in consumer sentiment against Agency Pricing. Businesses (Amazon etc) are no longer allowed to price things as they wish.
I've never heard anybody claim that Publishers shouldn't be willing to charge a price for their work, if they wanted to raise their wholesale prices by 30000% they had every right to do that. They could have even set up their own webstores and sold books directly, which they have made anemic attempts to accomplish and which they largely suck at doing.
That isn't what they did, they instead tried to lock retailers out of their own rights to price products however they saw fit.
By and large Publishers have been reluctant to place backlist titles on the marketplace for low prices because those low prices cannibalize sales from the front list books. Why buy a current bestseller at $14.99 when you can have that 20 year old book with great reviews that you've never read for $3.99? It's the exact same reasoning behind why they tried their hardest to hinder the secondary book market years ago.