Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I'm hoping that once this lawsuit is over that Fictionwise can go back to the model that had before the agency model with all the agency publisher's eBooks back for sale. That was a very successful model that worked well with customers.
|
Yup. It would be nice to see the independent e-bookstores be able to provide more books for users. It could be part of the solution for balancing Amazon. Not the entire solution but a step in the right direction.
Do people really believe that BN would not have matched Amazon's discounts? I can't say that I was checking BN website at the time, I had no good reason to, but BN had already established a policy of discounts and lowering prices for paperbooks, why wouldn't we think they would do the same with e-books?
As long as BN was matching Amazon's prices, even if not forced to by the Publishers, the Nook probably would have gained the same foothold it has gained today. Unless the argument is that BN was in such lousey financial position it could not match Amazon.
As for Apple, Jobs was late to the game because he did not believe people read enough to develop a dedicated e-reader. Once the IPad was going to be released, he was willing to look into an e-book store. He didn't like what he saw and, hey, we have some interesting e-mail traffic to get caught up on. IBooks did not take off because people could use Apps to read books from Amazon and BN. There was no reason to by from IBooks. And lets face it, Apple has done little to promote IBooks. It is not like they were out in front, like ITunes was. They missed the boat and decided that they did not like someone else playing the role of Apple in the e-bookmarket. The problem is it looks like they got caught.
I would also point out that Amazon established its price point long before BN, Kobo, or Apple entered the market. So Amazon's price was not established to take out the competition. Amazon's price point was established to entice people to by their wildly expensive new e-reader. The K1 was selling for $400. How do you convince people to buy one? Tell them that they will save a ton of money by buying e-books priced at $9.99 as opposed to the price they would pay for hardbacks. That price is low enough to get people who love to read to look at the device more seriously, calculate the amount they would save, and go "Hey, maybe I can save enough to afford this."
I remember people discussing how they could save enough with a NY Times subscription on Kindle to afford a K1. That was why Amazon was doing what it was doing. Create a reason for people to buy a new device. Now that the Kindle is established and doing well, we could see a slightly different tactic from Amazon. They might not be willing to lose money on e-books the way they were 5 years ago.