Random House adopts agency pricing March 1st

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

GET OVER IT.

No.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

One of the neat things about ebooks, and digital/digitally printed physical goods is that there does not need to be any more retailers.

This became true with the advent of ecommerce generally, and yet retailers are still a massive part of the marketplace. This is not for nothing. I don't want to hunt down every product from every manufacturer/producer (Certainly not the big ones -- little ones can be more customer friendly and responsive though) individually with new accounts and passwords at each location. I want Amazon and Walmart et al to buy in bulk, present everything in one place and pass some savings on to me. I want the retailers to use sales as retail advertising so I can further lower my costs by delaying certain purchases until sales occur.

eReader/Fictionwise was great at this with ebooks -- and they helped create an ebook market long before the big players even knew ebooks existed. Their big discounting made my ereading habit and conversion from the used pbook market possible. Without that, I might still be reading paper for cost reasons alone. As it stands, my ebook spending has frozen as I try to find a way to fill my entertainment hours on the same budget. I'm not just going to buy half as many ebooks for the same yearly cost and go on like that's okay. I'm going to adjust spending and that will almost certainly mean less goes to the big 6.

Individual publishers have less incentive to discount than a retailer whose discounts draw an audience to a library from many different publishers (this is even more true for a superstore like amazon where a discount on any segment of products potentially increases sales of all other categories of goods from movies to games to clothes etc). I'd be thrilled if I could get my books under agency for the same price as I did under retailer discounting -- but the reality is that that just won't happen (sorry Kali, but the big publishers just don't want price responsiveness or democratization, they want barriers and windows and control). Retailers are essentially a market voice that aggregate individual consumer voices to pressure prices lower. Agency pricing as it operates today silences that voice.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I agree, If what we want is a direct to reader market, and we all want that right?

Also no. Indeed, I'd rather see publishers fall by the way side than retailers, but in the end, I find some middlemen useful.

Why can't you state your opinion for yourself instead of trying to presume or demand universal agreement? I can respect that you don't value what retailers add to the equation (which for me equaled a savings of about 50% off retail for my entire elibrary), and I'd be happy for you to have the right to overpay for books as much as you'd like, so what makes it so hard for you to respect that I do value retailer expertise and practices and prefer to get the most bang for my buck?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Yes. And lots of prices go down about a year after the ebook release. That is also the reality.

To a figure higher than without Agency pricing?
Do the Larsson books cost more or less this week than last?
They have been out a lot longer than a year.
That is the reality for consumers, Agency pricing == higher pricing.

[murraypaul]

Oh, one possible reason for Random House switching to the Agency model can be seen in yesterday's Apple event, Random House books are now available in the iBookstore.

[Bittybye]

I in no way advocate piracy, but I can see where the people who use the Darknet are coming from.

I bought an ebook reader because the books were a little cheaper. This meant that I could buy books from new authors that sounded good. Now with the prices the same or even more as paper books I'm back to only reading books by authors I know I like.

Why are they doing this to loyal costumers? It's like they're begging for the books to be pirated.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Oh, one possible reason for Random House switching to the Agency model can be seen in yesterday's Apple event, Random House books are now available in the iBookstore.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I wish Jobs would hurry up and kick the bucket....

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Don't take this the wrong way, but I wish Jobs would hurry up and kick the bucket....

I don't think that there is a right way to take that!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't think that there is a right way to take that!

Probably true, but I really don't wish him harm, he's going through some really tough issues, but he's also the one (still) at the helm of the Apple Business Model which I despise.

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I expect that this is the first step on the road to instituting agency pricing for pbooks, too. If we accept the rationale for agency pricing of ebooks (i.e., to prevent the devaluing of the content by selling at too low a price), then it stands to reason that pbooks are next. After all, what is being sold in pbooks is the content, not the covering, and supposedly there is no content difference between p- and ebook versions. Consequently, selling of the pbook for less than the ebook price devalues the pbook content.

Agency selling of pbooks could also solve some other problems that publishers face, particularly returns and overlarge print runs that result in remainders and a large secondary market.

If there was agency pricing of pbooks then maybe that would help the few independent and chain bookstores left.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

I in no way advocate piracy, but I can see where the people who use the Darknet are coming from....

Not really. Any sufficiently popular book, song or movie will be pirated instantly, regardless of price, availability, DRM or any other unpopular corporate tactic. The frustrated consumers are vastly outnumbered by the ranks of those who just want Free Stuff.

The most reliable indicator of how frequently a title will be pirated is how popular it is.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

To a figure higher than without Agency pricing?

*sigh* OK, again....

• Amazon attempted to set a $10 price point.
• Other vendors (notably Sony, then B&N) did not match those prices consistently, and often had books that were over $10.
• Amazon also did not strictly adhere to the $10 price point.
• Consumers often blasted Amazon mercilessly for any book over $10 -- including trashing titles in the reader reviews and attempting "$9.99 boycotts" -- which indicates to me that the issue is the price, not who is setting it.

A few blasts from the past, before agency pricing existed....

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53942
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54338
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32583
http://inkmesh.com/blog/2009/11/30/a...ebook-pricing/

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Do the Larsson books cost more or less this week than last?

Again: I did not say that "absolutely no book prices go up with agency pricing."

I'm saying that while it is true that some ebooks are more expensive, others are at the same price as before.

The statement "agency pricing = more expensive" indicates that there is an across-the-board price increase, which is simply not the case.

Thus it is partly true that agency priced books are more expensive. I am not saying that the statement is "false," or "wildly outrageous," or that "no prices changed," or "all prices went down," or "Random House gives out free puppies with every download." I'm saying that the perception exaggerates the impact of the price increases, and is thus moderately inaccurate.

This, by the way, is rather normal -- as people tend to react much more strongly to a perceived loss ("the book I want is $2 more now") than to a perceived gain ("the book I want is $2 less now").

Capisce?

[wyndslash]

i completely understood you from your first post, kali, if that helps xD;

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Again: I did not say that "absolutely no book prices go up with agency pricing."

I'm saying that while it is true that some ebooks are more expensive, others are at the same price as before.

The statement "agency pricing = more expensive" indicates that there is an across-the-board price increase, which is simply not the case.

Do you think the average RH eBook price is higher or lower now than last week?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

I in no way advocate piracy, but I can see where the people who use the Darknet are coming from. [. . .]
Why are they doing this to loyal costumers? It's like they're begging for the books to be pirated.

Yes, you'd think they'd have learned from the music industry. Make your easily pirated material too expensive and inconvenient for customers to tolerate, and what do they think is going to happen?

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

"$9.99 boycotts" -- which indicates to me that the issue is the price, not who is setting it."

Don't get me started. Some vocal minority has a problem with the concept of market pricing and the meaning of a boycott. For those people, they seemed to actually convince themselves that their issue was NOT price (which it obviously was), but some kind of odd, misapplied principle.

Oops, I guess I started.

[pietrocrazy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Not really. Any sufficiently popular book, song or movie will be pirated instantly, regardless of price, availability, DRM or any other unpopular corporate tactic. The frustrated consumers are vastly outnumbered by the ranks of those who just want Free Stuff.

The most reliable indicator of how frequently a title will be pirated is how popular it is.

This is true. But at the same time, the consumers are the ones who make the industry profitable, not the typical pirates who pirate regardless. If you piss off your consumer base and they turn to piracy, it doesn't matter if they only make up a relatively small percentage of pirates overall. Not to mention that it has the added effect of making piracy more legitimate in people's eyes, which is the real long-term danger.

[Logseman]

The most reliable indicator of how frequently a title will be pirated is how popular it is.

Curious... so the revenue stream of popular (aka well-bought) titles is seemingly correlative to the degree to which it is pirated.