Quote:
Originally Posted by tomsem
It's the publisher contracts, not Apple. Publishers won't work with retailers that won't let publisher set prices.
Apple wanted to have fixed set of prices like they did for MP3's. $12.99, $9.99 etc. when they launched iBooks for iPad. $12.99 was still a lot less than new release pricing for hardbacks at that time. They didn't really know what they were doing (and still don't, when it comes to ebooks). Publishers went along with it at first, they didn't know what they were doing either, but were hoping for some competition with Amazon and ebooks were still kinda a new thing.
It wasn't long before they decided that neither model suited them and that they didn't want any constraints on pricing.
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Until Apple got involved in eBooks, prices were not fixed. Stores were able to have sales and discounts. Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard were two popular stores that sold eBooks. They did a really good business because they wrre able to offer discounts, sales, and other things such as Fictionwiae's Buywise club.
When Apple got involved, they wanted to take down Amazon and got the major publishers involved. Apple thought that if prices remained the same with no discounts or sales by the stores that we would not care where we purchased eBook and leave Amazon.
All that ended up doing was taking down the online stores who's business relied on sales and discounts.
As it is, prices on eBooks went up and have stayed up. Prices are near the same price for the pBook and sometimes more expensive. Sometimes when the pBooks comes out in paperback after the hardcover, the price of the eBook does not go down like it should.
If Apple had not rallied the publishers to try to screw over Amazon, eBooks would be cheaper and we'd have more stores to choose where we buy from.