Quote:
Originally Posted by captaingeorges
This type of pricing by Amazon and others like Fictionwise, should make the authors and publishers very very happy instead of mad...
In the past I used to wait for a book to be in paperback to buy it (9-10 a year) and the rest of my reading was done by buying books in second hand bookstore.
I got my Cybook in March 2008. So far I have bought 180 books...
The math should not be too hard to do...
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The question, IMO, isn't whether or not the price increases the number of books sold, but whether or not it increases profits. According to many reports, Amazon is losing money on each sale. If true, then the more books that are sold, the more money Amazon loses.
So, why is Amazon doing this? The only reasonable answer is to become 'the big dog' that can dictate terms. If they can corner the market (IMO, they can't-but they might think otherwise) they can then raise prices & recoup their losses. If not then, if they're big enough, they can dictate terms to the publishers, thus lowering the publishers prices. This, of course, is what the publishers fear.
Right now, I don't think anybody's losing money except Amazon-so the publishers are crying before they're hurt, as you pointed out. But the fear of being hurt is there, which is why they're not happy about the prices.