[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by llreader

It is an interesting theory, one I will keep track of. No one else seems to believe that Apple, who isn't even in the market yet, is imposing prices on the publishers.

Just to be clear, nobody (as far as I know) is suggesting Apple is 'imposing' prices on the publishers. As I've already said, the story was fairly widely reported at the time; it's since been overshadowed by the actual launch announcement of the tablet, and then the Macmillan ultimatum and Amazon's response, but Apple's role still gets discussed here and there.

If they proposed this, they have an angle, and I don't understand why they would want to jack up prices on what is already a marginal product.

Presumably they have a reason they think is good. And remember: Apple isn't in the book market in this scheme, they're just a distribution agent, so if the market tanks they lose nothing. If they can get anything at all (even just extra publicity) they win. They could, for example, see offering to sell e-books as a loss-leader to get into another market they think will be more profitable (all of the Big Six are just tentacles of much larger media conglomerates).

It isn't clear that Apple was pushing for higher prices, even from that article (assuming these rumors are an accurate representation of what really happened).

I don't see how "Sell through us for $15 instead of through Amazon for $10" classifies as anything other than pushing for higher prices, myself. As far as accuracy goes, so far the article's spot on. That article was published before Macmillan handed Amazon their ultimatum, and the price structure it talks about matches precisely the price structure Sargent's letter laid out.

Also, the article says the price would only be for bestsellers, and that isn't what seems to be happening now, so there is some sort of information missing.

The article doesn't say it would only be for best-sellers; best-seller prices are the only thing it mentions, there's a difference. Note that all the public statements we've seen from both Amazon and Macmillan also only mention best-seller prices.

As somebody who can count the number of "best-seller" hardcovers I've bought in the past ten years on the fingers of one hand and have enough digits left over to make the fig at John Sargent, if those were the only titles affected I wouldn't care in the slightest.