Quote:
Originally Posted by crossi
If Hachette wants Amazon to sell ebooks at a higher price why don't they raise, double or even triple, the wholesale price they charge Amazon. Amazon would have to raise the retail price and the publishers and authors would get more money per book. No one has ever said that the publisher or any wholesaler shouldn't set the wholesale price they charge a retailer. Of course, if they only raise the wholesale price for one retailer, Amazon, and none of the others that might create some problems for them.
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That is of course what the publishers were trying to do pre agency and it's where the whole "Amazon was selling ebooks at a loss comes from."
Rather then set a list price at $15 to $19 where retailers could have a small profit margin with a $9.99 (51% wholesale discount) they inflated the list price to $22 - $28. Amazon took the loss and it just allowed them to further grow market share. It wasn't sustainable and both Amazon and the publishers knew it. There's nothing stopping Hachette going back to that though. They can try to squeeze Amazon below the 30% to maintain a better profit margin themselves.