I find it interesting that the rumor just refers to print on demand and lowest price. I heard other rumors that the sticking point was the continued ability to discount.
Reading between the lines, I think the real objection, from the BHPs, is the print on demand, and
the cost being attributed back to the publisher. If the publisher didn't have the book, Amazon could print it up, charge the publisher, and completely cut out the publisher (absorb all the publisher's profit with the charge to POD). I can understand the objection to that. Offer a compromise--if the book is out of stock, it will be discounted by the publisher x amount per day. Of course, Amazon won't accept this if it really just wants to start dealing in out of print books. So Amazon could set a date--if not available within 10 days, . . .
I really don't care about the availability of pbooks, but I do want Amazon to get the continued ability to discount ebooks. I believe Amazon's efforts around discounting ebooks is why my library suddenly has Silkworm. During Agency, my library didn't have any newly issued books. As a matter of fact, I just checked the first Galbraith book, and see I only have it in audiobook. But now, it is for the first time available in ebook format.
There is a show on Amazon this Sunday. It will be interesting to see if this issue is mentioned. The one thing I think everyone is ignoring, is Amazon's part in making ebooks mainstream. There were other ereaders before the kindle, but it was Amazon's efforts, and storefront, that really made ereading take off. I spend a lot more on ebooks that I ever did not pbooks. For pbooks, I would look at my bedside pile of unread books, and decide not to go to the bookstore. With ebooks, I can just add it to Calibre, and I have 30 years (I hope) in which to read it. There is no pile, and I ignore the number in the lower left hand corner.
I think this is just a smokescreen. The real fight is whether agency is going to die a true death.
