HarperCollins returns to Full Agency pricing

[Atunah]

Its probably because I remember well what happened last time publishers implemented agency. That is exactly what happened then, every book went to at least 7.99 almost overnight. I can still go back in my kindle account and see exactly when the change was at the time. Books that were 4 something to 6 something all went to 7.99 plus.

Not sure why I should expect anything different this time, if it comes to that.

[Barcey]

Well I can honestly say that the agency conspiracy has saved me thousands of dollars over the years. Just say no.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by auspex

LOL. It's hard to understand how most book publishers haven't learned any lessons from the experience of the music industry's mishandling of new media at least a decade ago.

Reading this, it sounds like the biggest music industry problem is that they lost control of pricing:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/perm...ry-99-problems

However, I guess that's not what you mean.

Also, you don't want to allow concentration of your retail channel by one dominant retailer, whether it be Apple or Amazon.

However, I guess that's not what you mean.

One lesson is that you shouldn't cater to a youth market, since younger people have, on average and with many exceptions, fewer qualms about piracy.

However, I guess that's not what you mean.

Question: How many more years of publishers remaining profitable, while readers have lots of low-prices indie options, will it take to realize that maybe those English-major publishing executives aren't totally incompetent, or harmful to literature?

P.S. This isn't to say that I judge publishers by their profitability. I judge them by whether I like to read what they publish.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by auspex

LOL. It's hard to understand how most book publishers haven't learned any lessons from the experience of the music industry's mishandling of new media at least a decade ago.

I read this a lot, but I don't get what the publishers were supposed to have learned from the music industry. That people will take things for free? That once they are used to getting it for free, they will want to pay little for it even if you make it super convenient to acquire? Ok, true enough, but what were they supposed to DO? Go gentle into that good night? Accept their inevitable decline and irrelevance? Beseech the Amazon God to have mercy on them?

[Phogg]

No.
The biggest music industry problems were:

1. The Internet provided an affordable and virtually unrestricted distribution network almost anyone could access 24/7.

2. The decrease in cost of studio level recording facilities. The Sun Records studios in Memphis where Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash started cost between three and five million dollars when it was built. By the late nineties a similarly capable facility could be constructed for about twelve thousand dollars.

The collapse of the recording and distribution pay wall together with the ill will generated by decades of exploitive contracts was their biggest problem.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by Barty

I read this a lot, but I don't get what the publishers were supposed to have learned from the music industry. That people will take things for free? That once they are used to getting it for free, they will want to pay little for it even if you make it super convenient to acquire? Ok, true enough, but what were they supposed to DO? Go gentle into that good night? Accept their inevitable decline and irrelevance? Beseech the Amazon God to have mercy on them?

Well for starters they could have read one of their own books.

http://www.amazon.com/Appetite-Self-...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

I can pick up a used hard cover for $0.01 or a new hard cover for $3.85 but the Kindle Edition will cost me $14.09 "price set by the publisher". But the good news is I'd be saving 22% off the list price.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by auspex

LOL. It's hard to understand how most book publishers haven't learned any lessons from the experience of the music industry's mishandling of new media at least a decade ago.

You know, this is not true *at all*. It couldn't be *more false*.

Publishers moved much more quickly into e-book publishing than music publishers did, they quickly made books available in e-book formats, they embraced e-readers, and they all consider e-reading to be an important part of their strategy.

The mistakes that music publishers made was waiting until it was too late to embrace digital music, to produce incompatible formats (Sony ATRAC), and to try and uphold the album-sale model.

Having said that, though, the markets really aren't comparable. The music industry found itself in a situation where people could easily and cheaply rip and distribute music to millions of people. All it took was for one person to buy a CD and use a free program to rip the CD to mp3 format. This was and is the biggest problem that the music publishers faced.

Book publishers don't face any threat like this - once an e-book has been made, yes, it's trivial to distribute it. But it's not trivial to make an e-book in the first place (at least not compared to the two minutes of unattended time it takes to rip a CD).

Book publishers are dedicated to the idea of making all books available to whoever wants to buy them, in whatever format they want, to read on whatever device they want. Not doing this is the big mistake that music publishers made. It's not a mistake that book publishers are making.

Now it may be a mistake for book publishers to insist on certain prices, or to argue over who sets the price. But that's *not at all* the mistake that music publishers made.

[Tarana]

I wonder if the idea is that the average purchaser buys 12 books a year and doesn't care how much they pay because they only buy 12 books a year? Perhaps their belief is that this is the larger market and those who buy by price alone won't affect them much?

I wonder if publishers have considered that they HAD a market that formerly only purchased used books, but were happy to buy reasonably priced ebooks. Raising the prices will just send those folks back to the library or used book market thereby eliminating any profit to both publishers and authors. With an Indy market, you can abandon an author until you get a sale and get other authors on Amazon.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I wonder if the idea is that the average purchaser buys 12 books a year and doesn't care how much they pay because they only buy 12 books a year? Perhaps their belief is that this is the larger market and those who buy by price alone won't affect them much?

I wonder if publishers have considered that they HAD a market that formerly only purchased used books, but were happy to buy reasonably priced ebooks. Raising the prices will just send those folks back to the library or used book market thereby eliminating any profit to both publishers and authors. With an Indy market, you can abandon an author until you get a sale and get other authors on Amazon.

It's really hard to guess the dynamics of a market, especially one that is changing all the time. I knew that when Amazon started allowing free books it would impact my sales--I had no idea by how much. When agency started way back when, it impacted my sales in a positive manner. This time around? I don't think it will matter all that much. People know there are indie writers out there (and therefor cheap and free books). Libraries have more digital books to offer now than before. There are subscription models to compete with...

I think it's mostly about control--control of pricing and control of sales. If they have to go lower to get sales, maybe it matters most that they be setting the bar and when rather than someone else.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I wonder if the idea is that the average purchaser buys 12 books a year and doesn't care how much they pay because they only buy 12 books a year? Perhaps their belief is that this is the larger market and those who buy by price alone won't affect them much?.

We are talking about new books here. And 12 new hardcovers is actually more than I bought and I bought a lot of books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Once again, agency pricing doesn't mean that all ebooks are $8 or never on sale, it simply means that the publisher controls the price, not the retailer. I'm sure the HC will continue to have sales.

But since HC doesn't give a damn about the customer (DRM & high agency pricing), then they can go out of business for all I care. That can also stop sticking their heads up their read ends as well and see things for what they are.

[JSWolf]

Most people who read eBooks do not buy hardcovers and do not want to pay hardcover pricing. The pea-brains at the agency publishers need to learn this.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I wonder if the idea is that the average purchaser buys 12 books a year and doesn't care how much they pay because they only buy 12 books a year?

Surely they know that price affects sales, and have graphs showing the relationship.

Raising the prices will just send those folks back to the library or used book market thereby eliminating any profit to both publishers and authors.

Sending customers to the used market increases the price of the used books, making it possible to charge more for new. I guess it maybe could be argued, with complex statistics, that this lowers publisher profits. It certainly does not eliminate them. If used book availability really is a problem for publishers, I think they might do better to reduce dumping of remaindered copies into the used marketplace.

As for libraries, they seem willing to pay far more for eBooks than paper. When I consider that my 35,000 book neighborhood library is closed for a $3.08 million renovation ($88 per book), this makes sense. With eBooks, they save the costs of library construction, utilities, staffing, etc. So it is likely much cheaper for the library to pay $90 for an eBook than to pay $20 for a paper book, when all the costs of paper are factored in. And this high library eBook price means that the publisher is making multiple dollars each times a typical eBook title is circulated.

The quality of US daily newspapers declined, in large part, because they cheapened their product. That is a lesson book publishers have hopefully learned.

[RobertDDL]

There are countries -- including Austria and Germany -- where fixed prices for both printed books and ebooks are prescribed by law. Publishers do not have the option of not stting a fixed price, and the law is strictly policed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement

Publishers, authors and everybody else here who cares about literature and culture are supposed to welcome, defend and praise this law. (I alone think that it is stupid.)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most people who read eBooks do not buy hardcovers and do not want to pay hardcover pricing. The pea-brains at the agency publishers need to learn this.

Then these people have to wait until the paperback is out and the price for the ebook will be lower.