Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Lady
From what I remember when the big publishers went to agency, they left the smaller stores without a contract for quite a while. I remember Fictionwise selling Random House books but no other big publishers. It's hard to stay in business without having the products to sell.
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You nailed it. Even though the Fictionwise's loyalty program (amassing credit to apply toward future purchases) had customers coming back again and again, the double whammy of Agency disallowing discounts (ones that effectively reduced ebooks below the Agency mandated price-floor anyway--which theirs did), coupled with their inability to sell the books customers most wanted to buy (due to BPH's leaving them contract-less for a year or more) was too much to overcome.
Fictionwise were already holding (and keeping) their own slice of the pie when Amazon's $9.99 for select bestsellers was in full swing. What finally killed them was not being able to continue their discount program (Agency), and not having books to sell (no contracts for BPH titles). Neither of which were the fault of Amazon.