Write-in campaign claims that no readers were harmed by the agency model

[JonathanH]

Segments of the publishing industry are urging their constituents (employees?) to write to the Department of Justice and protest the lawsuit over the agency model. The latest to join in is the head of one of the New York literary agencies, who claims that even if collusion occurred, the public wasn't harmed because books are fungible.

As Joe Konrath points out, no-one in this writing campaign seems to be urging their customers (you know, those of us who actually buy and read their products) to join in.

So anyone who is miffed because the NYT bestsellers suddenly went up from $9.99 to $12.99 might want to add their voice and write to the DOJ Joe has the address halfway down his blog post...

[QuantumIguana]

Interesting a publisher claiming that books are fungible. Surely he doesn't want people to take him seriously. If we did, then why would anyone pay $10 or even $5 for a book? If they are fungible, that means any book will do, so wouldn't we just buy 99 cent books? After all, he's saying that the 99 cent book is just as good as the $9.99 book. We don't pay once price for a bushel of corn and a different price for a different bushel of corn, corn is interchangeable. If we each have a bushel of corn, and by accident, they get switched, we probably wouldn't even notice, or if we did notice, we probably wouldn't care. But if our books were switched, we would probably care.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by JonathanH

who claims that even if collusion occurred, the public wasn't harmed because

He should probably read up on the laws surrounding collusion* before making that statement, since, afaik, it doesn't matter if anyone was harmed or not, nor whether it was done for the good of consumers, collusion is just collusion

To an extent books are interchangeable, but that's mainly when looking for new authors in a given genre. As far as your favourite authors though, the books are certainly not interchangeable and if all your favourite authors happen to be part of the agency pubs...

* Since IANAL it's also very likely I should be the one reading up on the laws

[rleguillow]

Fungible, huh? I had to look that up. And I beg to disagree. I personally would be very unhappy if you replaced my Lord of the Rings trilogy with any number of Harlequin romances. No insult intended to the romances, it just doesn't seem to me that they are interchangeable.

[BeccaPrice]

no, of course Lord of the Rings isn't fungible with a romance - but then, romance books within the genre aren't fungible either. If "any book will do" is true, then there wouldn't be so many review sites, recommending good books and dissing bad ones. Even within an author, books aren't fungible. The Witness by Nora Roberts isn't interchangable with "The Pagan Stone", also by Roberts. Each book is unique.

[mrscoach]

Wait, so only "the prices for a limited number of titles published by these publishers increased"? Can he point me to any that DIDN'T increase? Everything I read (and I don't read best sellers) shot up.

And my books are NOT interchangeable. I read all kinds of works, but one book isn't just like another.

Is anyone else going to fire off a letter?

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by rleguillow

Fungible, huh? I had to look that up. And I beg to disagree. I personally would be very unhappy if you replaced my Lord of the Rings trilogy with any number of Harlequin romances. No insult intended to the romances, it just doesn't seem to me that they are interchangeable.

And vice versa. I got bored about half way through, but most of the arguments being made are totally nonresponsive to the DOJ suit. It appears to be a campaign of confusion, IMHO. It boils down to $9.99 vs 14.99 (what bestseller have you seen at 12.99 - I see more at 16.99 and even 18.00).

[AnemicOak]

Readers who are for the DOJ settlement can write in here...
http://support4settlement.wordpress.com/

[sun surfer]

I wonder if fungi are fungible.

[LovesMacs]

Well yeah, no readers were physically harmed by the agency model, but they (we) sure were impacted financially.

[howyoudoin]

There can only be one reaction to the claims made by this campaign:

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by rleguillow

Fungible, huh? I had to look that up. And I beg to disagree. I personally would be very unhappy if you replaced my Lord of the Rings trilogy with any number of Harlequin romances. No insult intended to the romances, it just doesn't seem to me that they are interchangeable.

I shudder at the notion that books are fungible, but it seems to me that a lot of people on MR DO think books are at least borderline fungible. How many MRers say they don't need to read the best-sellers and the Agency books because they can find adequate substitutes for free or rock-bottom prices?

[stonetools]

I think its a great example of open government that people can write in to the DOJ on this issue and I urge all those who are truly concerned to write in.
I think it likely that the outcome will determined mostly by the results of discovery and the findings of the economists hired by the parties.
The letter goes far beyond any claim that books are fungible. As always, click through and RTWT

[stonetools]

Another letter opposing the settlement by an independent publisher HERE.

Money quote:

The current system of traditional publishing is not a business with high profit margins, and it is far from perfect. But it does enable multiple companies to pay a variety of editors, writers, designers, and marketers to discover, perfect and promote a broad mix of written works that merit publication. The money that supports this system comes through the individual purchase of commendable books, reasonably priced. It is not a business sustained by advertising revenues, by the sales of other vehicles (such as e-readers), or by a system of patronage.



In other words, the book publishing business relies on reasonably priced individual products, sold to individual readers, for its survival.



Amazon is a behemoth. If it is able to set any price it wants for the products it distributes–books published by companies with whom it is competing, through the Amazon Publishing Division–Amazon will drive book prices so low reputable publishers will go out of business.

[vaughnmr]

You have to laugh when you read the publisher comments. Who do they think they are fooling?