I know I said this before, but I'd be a lot less unhappy about "agency priciing" if the publishers were consistent. Price the print and ebooks the same - allow or disallow the same
potential for discounting - and I may grumble that "prices went up", but I do that all the time. You should hear me complain about the price of soda.
For the person who commented that "who buys solely on price", I can only speak from my own experience. Before "agency pricing", I spent more than $2000/year on ebooks. I bought books I could never get around to reading in that year. I bought because the sale price was good and the book description was tempting. I'm still ... slowly ... getting around to reading ebooks I bought in 2005.
In 2010, when agency pricing went into play, I spent a bunch early in the year and got a great deal at Target on Sony eBook gift cards ($15 for a $25 card - I "stocked up!") My ebook spending was around $1200.
I noticed while doing my taxes this year that I "only" spent about $500 on ebook last year. I've been borrowing from the library and browsing my "TBR pile".
Agency pricing saved ME money in the long run, but - at least from this one regular purchaser - it didn't benefit either the publisher or the authors for all those books I would have impulse-bought had it not been in place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
Lower prices for books usually means lower royalties for authors. That's a lot more realistic than lower prices= more books sold=more money for authors. What if more books DON'T sell?
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Well, if they're ebooks, they won't be contributing to our landfills shortages, for one thing.