[darryl]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Googling these terms, you can find a bunch:

"bidding war" book

Here are examples that aren't even written by politicians:

http://nypost.com/2012/03/28/bidding...hit-1-million/

http://www.news.com.au/national/inte...-1226424860609

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...am-gets-376861

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/bu...lion.html?_r=0

There must be a larger number of cases where there is no bidding war, but the offered advance is higher than it would have been to make one breaking out less likely.

Now, if you mean competition between publishers on pricing, that is harder to document. Mike Shatzkin has speculated that PRH is too big to bully and nobody else is. If his speculation is correct, I think you could also say, albeit from quite a different perspective, this: Penguin and Random House used to complete on wholesale pricing terms with their biggest account, but now do not.

Thanks for your examples Steve. And yes, I was more interested in publishers competing on price. Because to me this seems the only meaningful competition that could keep prices reasonable under an agency pricing model, where the Publishers take control at the retail level.