|
As I understand it, the publisher and Amazon agree to a "list" price and the portion of that amount that each receives. Amazon is free to sell the book at any price they wish, as long as the publisher gets the agreed-on fixed amount. The discount comes entirely out of Amazon's portion. Amazon can give the book away, as long as they pay the publisher their cut.
I've seen it said that Amazon is subsidizing the $9.99 cost to some extent to develop the market, and it wouldn't surprise me. That would mean at some point, the costs of best sellers and other new books might rise.
The cost of printed books is more about the publisher charging what they think the market will bear (considering the competition) than charging a "fair" price, I think. There's is no reason that the publisher wouldn't look at the smaller cost of ebooks as an opportunity to increase revenue by selling for the same price as printed books. All we can do is try to hold the line at what we consider reasonable prices, and hope the publishers don't interpret this as there being no market for ebooks and pull out completely, despite Amazon's drive to promote it.
|