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Originally Posted by Rob G.
I find it very interesting that the music industry ran to Amazon as a way to escape Apple's perceived tyranny and now the publishing industry is running to Apple to escape Amazon's. Something about that just doesn't add up.
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That would be the case, except that Apple has essentially caved to the demands of the big publishers.
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Originally Posted by Rob G
Amazon is paying everyone's wholesale price but then they're choosing to sell at $9.99, which would seem to be a loss. Is this correct? If this is the case than I don't understand how someone can legally say Amazon has to sell at a certain price. Isn't that price fixing and illegal?
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In the short run, Amazon will make more money
per book. However, a) if they sell fewer books as a result of higher prices, then they lose money overall, and b) the expectation is that if Amazon continues to dominate, they will pressure the publishers to reduce their wholesale prices, and c) publishers hate the idea that ebooks will cut the value of their product by more than half.
I'm not aware of any indication that this behavior is illegal.
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Originally Posted by Rob G
And I guess in the end, I could support this if I felt it was going to mean more money in the author's pockets. I'm willing to bet money it won't.
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Either way, the authors wouldn't make out particularly well. Publishers are already pushing authors to take lower royalty rates on ebooks; and both the Apple plan, and reductions in wholesale prices, would result in lower royalty amounts. But again, it depends a lot on how the pricing effects sales volume. If a title sells twice as many $15 ebooks as they did $30 hardcovers, it will work out fine. Whether that will be the case is unknown.