Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I just take the view, I'm afraid Bob, that there are so many alterative places to buy eBooks from that if any one store charges silly prices, the only end result is that people will shop elsewhere and they'll be forced to either lower their prices or go out of business. It's therefore a "self-correcting" problem.
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Agreed -- which begs the question, "What is the point of Waterstone's?" as far as ebooks are concerned. Waterstone's has a chain of physical bookstores for selling physical books: their middle-man position there is understandable.
Moreover, publishers themselves are terrified of the coming ebook revolution, especially for fiction. Their two principal (and largely indispensable) activities are promotion and distribution. The net takes care of the latter; and I must say I have not noticed overmuch promotion of ebooks by the big publishing houses. This begs a second question, much like the first ...