Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
Equally, afaik, the word "blame" should be used, given we're dealing with a cartel situation.
cfrizz - Sure, that's good PR (and I've pointed this out in other threads). But that doesn't address the cause, which is the agency cartel.
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For the most part, blame is a term used by people seeking to absolve themselves of responsibility for a situation by means of finding fault and using that to direct the responsibility elsewhere.
I am concerned about higher prices, but I'll accept higher prices for some books if I can get lower prices for others. It's a trade-off. As to agency, I'm a lot more concerned about the prices of the books I'm buying than how they're arrived at.
The other thing one has to look is how much sense it really makes to cater to 5% of your customer base at the expense of the other 95%. Ebooks are a niche market - and that means publishers have to focus their efforts on paper. Right now, that means a publisher that doubles ebook unit sales at the same time they lose 10% of their hardcover unit sales is taking a net loss even if they're priced equally - let alone if the ebooks are priced at 40% of hardcover.