U.S. Justice Dept. to Sue Publishers, Apple, for Price Collusion?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stonetools

That's some absurd hyperbole there. Since agency pricing the ebook market has doubled. Those consumers are buying those "overpriced" bestsellers like never before. Frankly it would be difficult to argue that consumers have been hurt all that much by agency pricing.

Why are you in favor of agency pricing?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by advocate2

Without the Agency model Apple would never have been able to gain market share against Amazon.

Apple has released *no* information about ibookstore sales. The iPad sells like crazy, but there's no indication that they have any notable slice of the ebook market.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Fictionwise sold to B&N AFTER the agency pricing went into effect because there was no way they would have survived.

B&N announced their purchase of Fictionwise on March 5, 2009.

Agency ebook pricing began Apr 1, 2010.

B&N bought Fictionwise (speculation) to get their software (the eReader pdb DRM), access to their ebook supply accounts, and to kill the competition.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not offended; I simply wait 6 months for the paperback to be released, at which time the ebook price falls to a sensible level.

There are quite a lot of eBooks that do not drop in price once the paperback is released. It's a game and we are the losers. One trick the publishers use is they have the hardcover printed by one of their companies and then the paperback print by yet another company so they don't have to lower the cost of the eBook because the paperback and the eBook are from two different companies. They cheat, they lie and they steal. They don't always do what's best for the customer. They like having the eBook priced at hardcover levels even when there is a paperback edition. And now in order to keep eBook prices high, when they do print a paperback that matches the eBook, the paperback prices are inflated so the eBook price drops very little if at all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Apple has released *no* information about ibookstore sales. The iPad sells like crazy, but there's no indication that they have any notable slice of the ebook market.



B&N announced their purchase of Fictionwise on March 5, 2009.

Agency ebook pricing began Apr 1, 2010.

B&N bought Fictionwise (speculation) to get their software (the eReader pdb DRM), access to their ebook supply accounts, and to kill the competition.

I thought Fictionwise sold to B&N because of the agency pricing. Guess I was incorrect.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You say "it offends nobody" and yet I've read many complaints about high-priced eBooks released at the same time as hardbacks.

BAEN E-ARCs are not the *only* edition of the ebook.
If you want to get the ebook *before* the pbook releases you can choose to pay extra.
If not, you get the regular ebook edition, released when the pbook ships, at $6. Both ebook releases are DRM-free and multiformat.
What's there to complain about?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not offended; I simply wait 6 months for the paperback to be released, at which time the ebook price falls to a sensible level.

That's what I do most of the time: wait for the bundled release at sub-paperback price.

But once or twice I've found enough justification to pay the premium.
It's just good business sense to offer an option to customers willing to pay extra to be the "first kid on the block" to see what comes next.

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not offended; I simply wait 6 months for the paperback to be released, at which time the ebook price falls to a sensible level.

My beef with agency pricing is that is NOT what I've seen happen - the paperback comes out, and the ebook still costs the same as it did on initial release.... and the hardcover is quite often discounted below the ebook price.

I've seen this with Simon and Schuster books, for example. Mobipocket used to sell the Star Trek books for $5-12 for their ebook versions. Now those books go from $10-18 and up in Canada. Whereas the PAPERBACKS could go for $4 or so.

I've seen Amazon prices go up when agency pricing is involved too. A book three years old can often cost the same in ebook version as it did at start, whereas I could buy the dead tree version for half that price, because the store (or Amazon) don't want the physical item taking up storage or shelf space that could be used for the next hot-seller.

Baen sells their books for what I'd call reasonable prices, both paper and ebook versions. You can spend more to get a sneak peek, if you want... or not, and still get it when the paper one comes out. Whereas some agency priced books will be delayed... as has been posted here.

I think the DoJ is worried less about the megastores abusing their market share, and more worried about collusion between publishers to keep prices from being set artificially high, due to what publishers want you to pay, versus what the market is actually willing to pay.

[SteveEisenberg]

Here's an excellent analysis of the lawsuit, presenting good arguments pro and con, some of which may actually be new to the thread:

How Cheap Should Books Be?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Here's an excellent analysis of the lawsuit, presenting good arguments pro and con, some of which may actually be new to the thread:

How Cheap Should Books Be?

From the article:

antitrust law now favors a corporate hegemon like Amazon, over the interests of smaller, less powerful businesses, such as the publishers

Um. "Smaller, less-powerful businesses?"

Y'know, I can believe Samhain Press is a small, not-very-powerful business. Wildside Press is small. Macmillan is not small. Penguin is not small. If 5 of the "big 6" publishers were being steamrollered by an upstart warehouse/e-order company, there's something wrong with their business models.

If publishers--manufacturers--are being hurt by a *store*, it shouldn't take a conspiracy between competitors to fix that. They had the option of just *not selling* to Amazon, and supporting Amazon's competition that way.

Whether or not antitrust law favors the hegemon--I can believe it does--that doesn't excuse collaborating to raise prices. If they wanted Amazon not to be the industry leader in ebook sales, all they had to do was seek out other marketplaces. They, after all, create what Amazon sells.

This is a case of "we want all the money Amazon brings us, but we don't want Amazon to have any leverage to use against us." Which, ahm. Well, it's kind of a one-or-the-other thing. You can't get truckloads of money from companies that are struggling to survive. And companies that are thriving, have leverage to swing around in multiple directions.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Here's an excellent analysis of the lawsuit, presenting good arguments pro and con, some of which may actually be new to the thread:

How Cheap Should Books Be?

This paragraph was interesting:

The deal was extremely peculiar. The industry had long operated based on a "wholesale model," where both brick and mortar stores and online merchants like Amazon could buy the books, then offer them to consumers at any price they liked. But Amazon had angered publishers by pricing eBook editions of new best sellers as low as $9.99, treating them as loss leaders to lure more customers into purchasing Kindles. The publishers worried that readers would become used to rock-bottom prices, hurting their long-term profits, and imperiling other important industry fixtures like Barnes & Noble.

They wanted you and I to subsidize B&N and other important industry fixtures like poor, poor upstart Apple? I'm totally up for that, where can I send my donation? If they felt strongly that Amazon was the devil, they could have stopped selling their books through Amazon, and been lynched by their shareholders and authors.

They can't make money on an ebook at $9.99? Damn, those pixels must be expensive. I'm aware that Amazon was actually paying them more than $9.99, but nevermind that little detail. They were concerned with cannibalizing hardcover books because Amazon was training all of us consumers to buy ebooks instead for $9.99 or less, oh the horror. Thing is, if consumers want $9.99 ebooks and not $35 hardcovers then that's what publishers should produce. If they don't, there are plenty of small publishers and independent authors willing to fill that need.

The reason they didn't switch to this awesome new pricing model for paper books is....? Ebooks are special snowflakes. Or, maybe it's not so awesome.

Hey dinosaurs, we get that you don't like ebooks. Tag, you're extinct.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

This is a case of "we want all the money Amazon brings us, but we don't want Amazon to have any leverage to use against us." Which, ahm. Well, it's kind of a one-or-the-other thing. You can't get truckloads of money from companies that are struggling to survive. And companies that are thriving, have leverage to swing around in multiple directions.

Yes! K for you

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

They cheat, they lie and they steal.

Thats ok because i go to the public library.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Hey dinosaurs, we get that you don't like ebooks. Tag, you're extinct.

...great line.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Hey dinosaurs, we get that you don't like ebooks. Tag, you're extinct.

I wonder if the asteroid will indeed hit in 2012, them that is....

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Synamon

They wanted you and I to subsidize B&N and other important industry fixtures like poor, poor upstart Apple?

All the players want high prices, at least in the long run. Apple, the highest capitalized company in the world, might be the one firm which could potentially destroy Amazon by underpricing. But Apple's strategy of continuous high prices has been so successful that I can't see them giving it up, even just for a couple years to destroy a competitor.

Google does have a low price strategy (2 cents a minute telephone calls from US to much of Europe, for example). But I don't think they price in a predatory way. They still will charge that 2 cents even if Verizon gets out of the long distance business.

Originally Posted by Synamon

I'm aware that Amazon was actually paying them more than $9.99, but nevermind that little detail.

Mind it. The loss leader was temporary.

Originally Posted by Synamon

Hey dinosaurs, we get that you don't like ebooks. Tag, you're extinct.

How much footnoted non-fiction do read?

Non-fiction is recent decades seems to me to be generally much better than in past centuries, and I attribute that to professional editing. It seems to me that if you value serious non-fiction, you shouldn't be so cavalier about getting rid of professional help-the-author-to-write-a-much better-book editing.

Fiction is different in that there always will be a few authors able to produce great works with copy editing only.

Do I really favor price-fixing? Well, I never have before, and the agency model is just a polite term for horizontal price fixing. So it's a close call for me. But Amazon's history of obviously predatory pricing, and their treatment of employees as documented in newspaper exposes last year, does not lead me to cheer them on.