Quote:
Originally Posted by ottdmk
A question: is $14.99 really that common a price point? I freely admit that I only usually look buying ebooks when the mass-market paperbound comes out. At that point the publishers I buy from are usually pricing the ebooks at a little less then the paperback.
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It was the baseline price during the conspiracy.
The way the court documents put it, the BPHs wanted a flat $14.99 price for everything--short or long, Patterson or Joe Newcomer--and Apple insisted on $12.99. iBooks launched at a nominal $14.99 with NYT bestsellers at $12.99 but the scheme didn't last long and eventually Apple got it their way, with most Agency titles running around $12.99 give or take a buck. (The problem was that at $12.99, the publishers made less per book under agency than under pre-agency wholesale and at $14.99 they made roughly as much.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-s...es-2013-7?op=1
Penguin actually tried $16.99 for the first month but quickly retreated to the "safety" of the pack when they saw the first sales reports.
Obviously, Hachette is still pining for agency at $14.99 and Amazon's answer is they can have 30% agency at $9.99 but not at the higher price/lower volume. Going by the early rumors, apparently they asked for a bigger cut at the higher price. (Probably closer to 50% than 30%.)
For the record, those are Amazon's terms to indies: 70-30 at $2.99-9.99 and 50-50 otherwise. Pretty consistent.