[Timboli]

Originally Posted by gmw

Many Indy authors also publish paper and digital, and not always under an obviously Indy name - so you can't always easily tell just by looking at the publisher name.

No, and that was not the comparison I was using.

You cannot assess the situation by looking at just a few titles.

No, and that is not what I did.

For Indy authors/publishers the question of "working economically" is quite variable (we'd all love to make a living from it, but a more realistic expectation is supplemental income and we all have different expectations of what makes an acceptable supplement). For non-Indy publishers you need to look across a wide selection of the books they publish, because publishing has always been about using very good investments to support the new stuff that may or may not turn out to be good.

Indeed.

Your search for people "playing fair" is a search for an illusion because every person's idea of "fair" is different and sometimes quite arbitrary.

What search?
And sorry to disagree, but I have never seen fair as arbitrary. Sure, you need to weigh up each case, but some things are bleeding obvious, or should be. Any arbitrariness is in the mind of those applying such.

Take, for example, one Indy author that I know that would like to make $x per book, whether paper and ebook, and so sets the prices to ensure that minimum. It should be obvious to all that $x is entirely arbitrary, and the next Indy author I meet may well use $y.

I think you are mixing up expectation with arbitrary. Sure there is an arbitrary element, but I fail to see that as relevant when it comes to fairness.

On the one hand, you can have someone who expects no profit for their effort, while for another, they might expect heaps of profit. It is reasonable and fair to take a middle ground. All else is desire and expectation.

Capitalist economics is not about fairness or justice, it's about what the market will bear. This is especially true with luxury items, and books are luxury items (as has been pointed out previously).

Never said otherwise.
But I will say there are degrees of capitalism, and I am not a fan of capitalism that goes too far and impinges on Democracy and ultimately fairness.
I believe in boundaries to behavior and how you treat others, and especially in society, which was created for all. If you are filthy rich, society made you so and so you owe it, as you would be nothing without it ... too many forget that and think its all their own doing. It's called greed and taking advantage of others.