Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
We have seen in the past that one can make the numbers come out any way one wants by cherry picking data. Without the supporting data, it's simply an unsupported assertion. I'm sure that Amazon knows the data, but that doesn't mean that the actual data supports their assertion. What Amazon is basically saying is that you can sell more generic product at X than you can at 2X. That's a basic economic truism.
What they don't say is what is the proper price point to maximize profit, and how that price point changes based on specific authors, genres and subject matter. From the publisher's point of view, if they can sell X number of copies of a book at $15 and 1.2 X copies of a book at $10, then they are leaving money on the table. That money is important to publishers because unlike Amazon, they actually have expenses for each and every book in their catalog and the majority of books don't ever earn out that expense.
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But they do talk about profit, not unit sales. Of course does nobody know, if the data given is correct and of course one price maybe does not fit every book. But I make the assumption it is about agency pricing. And that would mean, there is one price set. So amazon is not able to sell the books as they would do it under wholesale. It is a little absurd: the business partner with no (or at least much less) knowledge about pricing would then set the price. Of course amazon would not accept this, if said pricing is way out of line to what they see best.
More or less hatchett just want to still protect the hardcover pricing...