[DMSmillie]

I'm interested to know what people think about authors having a direct say in the price their books sell for, and whether or not their books are discounted by retailers (note: I'm talking here about indie authors who publish independently, not those who publish via a "mainstream" publishing house).

The thread in the "News" forum about Smashwords switching to an agency pricing model indicates that even when it's the authors themselves seeking greater control over the price of their own books, not everyone here is in favour. I'm interested to know why that is?

It seems to me that it doesn't preclude any possibility of books being discounted by one retailer or another - just that they'll have to come up with a reasonable deal for the author to persuade them to agree. There would, surely, still be possibilities for competition between retailers, with resulting benefits for consumers? There's also the fact that indie authors, to a large extent, compete with each other on price, and, if I understand it correctly, compared to those signed up with mainstream publishers, there's a much more direct correlation between book price and the income it generates for the author.

But I'm bound to be missing things that others have thought of, so I'd be really interested to hear what others think.

- Donna