Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
No.
Publishers could switch to the gimmicky pricing schemes you apparently prefer, and that disguise any price maintenance. I've mentioned before that complex price maintenance schemes, incorporating discounting, might be more popular with Mobileread posters. Independent books stores wouldn't like that, and I care about them a little. But I'm OK with Hachette moving to gimmick pricing, so long as it doesn't come about by one dominant retailer forcing all but a "small number of specialized titles" (Amazon's phrase) into the same pricing mold as quickly written fiction.
If $4.50, as you say, is what you afford, go indie.
How about if Amazon just lets Hachette price as it wish, and then competes against them with Amazon Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing? If the alleged buggy whip maker dies, what's the problem, since you never liked them anyway?
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The gaming discounts are no gimmicks, they are very agile responses to market activity. If the game is poorly received, the price drops. If it is a success, the price stays high.
And the discounts come from the retailers as often as from the publishers.
And do *not* presume to know what I can or cannot afford. You do not know me nor do I care to be known by you.
That I can easily afford plenty of electronic toys and digital entertainment has no bearing on the ways I choose to spend my disposable income. I simply refuse to waste money supporting the self-defeating idiocy of a handful of fading oligarchs.
And if I read indie titles it is because they offer something of interest not because they are cheap and deliver higher margins to the authors. But it doesn't hurt that it does. Unlike the snotty Prestons out there, most of the indie authors I've met are smart and witty folks who respect their readers.