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Originally Posted by darryl
This is the first time I have come across this characterisation of what occurred. Publishers approaching Apple? I always thought Apple had wanted in to the market but only on condition it would not have to compete with Amazon on price. Would you please provide the source or sources from which you reached this "understanding"?
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Publishers told Apple they were unhappy with Amazon's standard price of $9.99. Although they received the full wholesale value of each book sold by Amazon, publishers didn't want $9.99 to catch on as the new default price for e-books, especially since this was so much lower than hardcovers. One strategy they used to keep revenues up was to delay the release of e-book versions of new books, but Apple told publishers it opposed this tactic in its then-forthcoming e-books store. HarperCollins wanted to flat-out charge as much as $18 or $20 for e-books, but Apple Senior VP Eddy Cue also made it clear that this was unrealistic.
Apple was more amenable, however, when HarperCollins suggested using an "agency model" instead of the wholesale model used by Amazon.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...-judges-words/
There are numerous other articles as well that mention that the publishers wanted to set their own prices (i.e. the definition of agency pricing) for some time, especially if one goes back to stories that were written before or during the trial. All one has to do is do a bit of research.