Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Hum, so Amazon fights a major legal battle against the publishers, and even tried to strong arm one publisher by removing the buy button from their books with the resulting awful publicity. But when Amazon finally caved and gave the publishers what they had wanted all along, the ability to set the prices, you spin it as Amazon beating the publishers. What an interesting and ahistorical view.
I really don't see how one can view agency pricing by the publishers as anything other than a defeat for Amazon and a win for the publishers. The publishers have exactly what they wanted, the ability to control the price. First run, NY Times best sellers is where publishers make their money. As long as they can charge premium prices for such books, they are making money. Selling backlist books for $3 is gravy for them and was never what the battle was about.
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Aweful publicity for Amazon? If I remember it right it was Hachette that got the bad publicity for being unwilling to negotiate in time before the contract actually expired. Amazon did them a favor by still selling their books. They only removed preorder buttons, not buy buttons.
To each their own.
ETA: Forgot to add my thoughts to the second part. How is agency a win for Amazon? There is no more competition. As Jobs said in 2010: "prices will be the same." The other positive is that Amazon can focus on selling more of their own books (indies and imprints alike). If you want to compete with Amazon now, not only do you need better service, you also need a bigger selection. A new store that only sells big publisher books has to have a very convincing buying experience to make people buy from there instead of Amazon.