MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Fictionwise no longer selling certain books?

DawnFalcon · 04-02-2010, 12:39 PM

Chlorine - Ah, okay :P

The "previous" model is the "retail model". The retailers pay a percentage (50-55%, usually) of the publisher's cover price of the ebook. How they then price the book is entirely up to the retailer. They can run discounts, rebates, membership clubs etc.

The "agency model" works differently. The publisher sets the price. This may not be varied, period. The retailer gets 30% of this set price when they sell the book. Also, a lot of retailers are putting in clauses that require no other retailer gets a better deal, thus enforcing identical pricing.

This is supposedly "necessary" because Amazon were choosing to sell a minority of books - mostly high profile best-sellers - as loss-leaders (losing money on every sale) at $9.99 to draw in customers.

04-02-2010, 12:39 PM	#24
DawnFalcon Banned Posts: 2,094 Karma: 2682 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: N/A	Chlorine - Ah, okay :P The "previous" model is the "retail model". The retailers pay a percentage (50-55%, usually) of the publisher's cover price of the ebook. How they then price the book is entirely up to the retailer. They can run discounts, rebates, membership clubs etc. The "agency model" works differently. The publisher sets the price. This may not be varied, period. The retailer gets 30% of this set price when they sell the book. Also, a lot of retailers are putting in clauses that require no other retailer gets a better deal, thus enforcing identical pricing. This is supposedly "necessary" because Amazon were choosing to sell a minority of books - mostly high profile best-sellers - as loss-leaders (losing money on every sale) at $9.99 to draw in customers. Last edited by DawnFalcon; 04-02-2010 at 12:42 PM.