http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...l-survive.html
Quote:
Of course, if the publishers still believe in a no-discount, straight agency model for e-books, they can keep it. And they have some leverage. Despite the pain of suits, the 2010 agency switch succeeded in bringing Apple into the e-book game. And, the agency model also enjoys support from other retailers who are not eager to return to a permanent price war with Amazon—Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google are either happy with agency pricing or indifferent to it.
Unless one believes Amazon is prepared to dump each of the Big Five publishers, all the publishers have to do, in theory, is maintain their resolve, take the short-term pain, and, one by one, hold the agency line.
But will they? The short-term pain could be considerable, given Amazon’s share of both digital and print sales.
Only time will tell whether there is enough industrywide resolve to back up those words. For now, Hachette is a bellwether: potentially the first publisher to decide, postsettlement, whether to hold the line on e-book agency pricing, and to endure the stick of Amazon’s retaliation without knowing whether the publishers after it will reach for the carrot.
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If Amazon caved like it did with Macmillan a few years back, ebook sellling will be back to agency model. No discount.
Macmillan back then had the colluded backing of the other 4 publishers thanks to Apple anti-trust violation. This time, Hachette will have to go at it alone.