Amazon/B&N/Kobo can once again discount ebooks from the 3 Publishers starting June 10

[Angst]

My biggest problem is with publishers who are not pricing their books for the market. Penguin, for instance, regularly prices it's ebooks at $2-3 above the paperback price and is very slow to bring prices down. I have a waiting list of about 5 Penguin authors whose ebooks are hugely overpriced. While I'm waiting for them to bring their prices down to market value, I will be buying books from other publishers who have reasonable ebook prices. Amazon is much more attentive to market prices than the publishers who tend to respond to ebooks prices with a "set it and forget it" model.

[crossi]

Angst, you are so right. There is a 10 yr old S.F. ebook from Penguin. It had never been released in HB. It's Amazon Best Seller Rank has never been less than 150,000 and they want $11 for it. People aren't buying it in droves and Penguin apparently hasn't noticed it in the last year or they don't care.

[BeccaPrice]

crossi, as long as they make the book available, whether people buy it or not, Penguin doesn't have to revert the rights to the author.

[ProfCrash]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ettlement.html

Terms of the Settlement

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Why would the others be at a disadvantage?

I thought people paid agency pricing because it was the only way to get their favorite authors.

What's so magical about wholesale pricing from a Big 6 publisher vs wholesale pricing from a smaller publisher when your favorite authors aren't available on any of them?

I don't see this as an issue.

If my favorite authors cost too much, then I do without them. I never HAVE to have the latest by <insert name here>. I've never been too fixated on people anyway.

The only agency ebooks that I have bought have been at reduced prices. If they want to sell me anything, they must sell at what I consider a reasonable price. In this regard, I have a will of adamantium.

[markbot]

It's too late for me. I used to buy ebooks, but now I just go to the public library. If I do read ebooks, they are out of copyright or from the elibrary.

It's amazing how much money I spend on random things...like when I'm on vacation or just eating out. But, I'm really cheap when it comes to media. I'll go the extra mile to save a measly $10. I don't subscribe to cable TV and just cut my netflix blurays from 2 to 1. I also use prepaid movie tickets to save $4 per ticket. I'll buy only used games and resell them for like $10.

[Top100EbooksRank]

Originally Posted by stonetools

So what will RH do? They MAY go back to wholesale-short term. BUt in my mind, there is no question they'll go back to agency pricing and direct sales-long term. They'd be short-sighted idiots not to.

What is the time frame for the "short-term" that you have in mind?

[Sydney's Mom]

I do not think the judge approved the settlement yet, so the 60-day period has not yet started to run. I could be wrong, but we are just in the motion to dismiss phase - any hearings on the merits are years away. I love motion practice!

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

What is the time frame for the "short-term" that you have in mind?

I could see RH signing 1 year "whole sale" type contracts with book stores after the current ones expire , then going back to agency after the settlement period expires.
I think a lot will depend on how fast Amazon expands market share and what terms Amazon is going to offer next contract. If Amazon expands to say, 75-80 percent, then the contract expires, Amazon would be in a position to put the squeeze on. "Sell to me at less than $9.99 per unit ( so I can make money on margin) or instantly lose 75-80 per cent of your ebook market plus all your print sales through us. " At that point we'll see if the RH negotiator has the balls the Macmillan CEO John Sargent has.
All of this is to say that we just don't know what RH will do short term (I doubt RH itself knows).

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by stonetools

They guard against such a scenario by :

1. Encouraging as broad and diverse a group of retailers as possible ( that's the intent of agency pricing).
2. Establishing their own sales channels . In the UK, RH is investing in Anobii LINK Anobii isn't off the ground yet,but its CEO is on record as promoting direct marketing to consumers from the publisher.Anobii sets out their vision HERE:

I like option 2 and I thought that publishers would need to strongly consider these types of options to remain relevant.

I'm actually wondering what these breaks from Agency pricing do to Apple. Will Apple continue to offer ebooks from these publishers but charge at a higher price to Amazon? If they wouldn't go into the ebook business without agency pricing, what do they do now that agency pricing disappears (at least for some of the big 6)?

[stonetools]

The settling publishers can still offer agency contracts to Apple and indeed to all bookstores. They just can't bar the retailers from discounting the agency price-which kind of defeats the purpose of the agency model. TBH, the settling publishers might as well just go back to wholesale, which means Apple would have to set prices, not the publishers. Apple isn't set up to do that, which would mean the administration and hassle of setting and adjusting thousands of prices, developing pricing algorithms, etc.
Apple can still get the pure agency model from 3 of 6 publishers-including Random House, the biggest of them all. They might just deal with those 3.

[crossi]

If all or most drop the agency model do you think apple will drop the iBook store as just too much trouble for not enough return?

[ProfCrash]

It has been threatened

[crossi]

Someone said that it would be too much trouble for Apple to work up pricing algorithms for their iBook store but do they really need to? All they need is a program that searches Amazon for the price of that title and uses their price. Automated price matching. Let Amazon do all the work of finding the best price.

It's a bit hard to believe they would completely drop the store because it would be a bit embarassing for them to say they failed at selling ebooks. They'd likely keep it to avoid losing face as long as they aren't actually losing money from it.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by crossi

Someone said that it would be too much trouble for Apple to work up pricing algorithms for their iBook store but do they really need to? All they need is a program that searches Amazon for the price of that title and uses their price. Automated price matching. Let Amazon do all the work of finding the best price.

It's a bit hard to believe they would completely drop the store because it would be a bit embarassing for them to say they failed at selling ebooks. They'd likely keep it to avoid losing face as long as they aren't actually losing money from it.

Apple doesn't want to play any of that. Apple's model is let the publisher set whatever price they want, and we'll handle the sale and take our cut.
Apple, throughout its stores, likes simple basic pricing models. It doesn't fool with pricing programs of any kind. If you don't like the set price, goodbye. That's Apple.

That said, they are fiecely contesting the suit, so I think they are in it for the long haul.