Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
From the most part, the average reader has no clue what publisher their favorite author uses and could care less about agency pricing.
There has long been a clientele for cheap generic books. That's the niche that the old used bookstore filled, where you took in a bag of books, got credit for them and took home a bag of books. My mother did that for years. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The issue now is that ebooks don't really have the equivalent and that clientele really, really wants cheap generic ebooks. So there have been a couple of efforts to fill that niche, i.e. the indie movement and the subscription model (i.e. KU). There are likely others. Once again, nothing wrong with those business models. My only question is can the authors make enough to keep writing. We will see.
My issue is that some people who prefer this model seem to think that traditional publishers are evil for not selling them ebooks at their preferred price point. That makes as much sense to me as complaining that Apple won't sell iPhones at the same price point as the el cheapo Korean phones. It's not a moral issue. If you don't want to pay $15 for an ebook, then fine, don't. No skin off my nose. It's a personal choice, not a moral decision. I'm not willing to pay for a BMW when I can get from point A to point B with a much cheaper Honda. But that doesn't make BMW evil.
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My issue with your narrative is that you still insist that all traditionally published books are inherently better than indies or self-published. Why? You try to say, without technically outright saying it, that only those that used to trade a bag of used books for a new bag of used books are now happily using indies and KU. Ignoring subscriptions and paper books for a second, the payment to the self pubbed author is higher even though the sales price is much lower than trad published.
Your example comparing (ironically) the iPhone vs el cheapo Korean phone with tradpub vs indie is flawed. The only reason there is no cheap iPhones around is, because Apple does not allow any competition. If you refer to Korea on purpose to hint towards Samsung, when you are barking up the wrong tree. While Samsung does make entry level and cheap phones, their high end models are far from cheap and with a healthy profit margin.