Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
Why would the others be at a disadvantage?
I thought people paid agency pricing because it was the only way to get their favorite authors.
What's so magical about wholesale pricing from a Big 6 publisher vs wholesale pricing from a smaller publisher when your favorite authors aren't available on any of them?
I don't see this as an issue.
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Advantage #1:
A best seller from Random House priced at $9.99 (wholesale - retailer discount) will sell more than THE SAME bestseller from Random House that is priced at $12.99 or $14.99 (agency).
Advantage #2:
Wholesale a book with a RRP at $25 will result in $12.50 for the publishers.
Agency pricing a book with the price of $12.99 will result in $9.093 for the publishers.
That's why Random House might be tempted to switch back to wholesale.
The downside: it will speed up the adoption of ebook, which is bad for Random House since it wants to protect its print hard cover business.
The one who will be disadvantage are those who are on agency (Penguin, Macmillan).
If all 6 are on agency, then it's a level playing field. But if 3 or 4 are on wholesale and 2 or 3 on agency, it tilts the balance toward those who are on wholesale.
The whole point of collusion was to get at least 4-5 Big Publishers to switch to agency. If only 1 did, it would be at a huge disadvantage.