As an Indie author, I’ve always sided with Amazon because Amazon made my career as a writer possible. Nevertheless, I was a little confused recently by the retail giant’s apparent about-face with regard to the agency model.
Essentially, the agency model does two things:
- It allows traditional publishers to set the price of their own eBooks, and
- It prevents Amazon from discounting those prices.
In practical terms, this means that many traditionally published eBooks are more expensive than their paper counterparts. Not surprisingly, this has led to an overall drop in profits for publishers.
A less obvious effect has been to make some readers angry with Amazon because they think the retail giant is to blame for the high prices. So why has Amazon allowed this to happen? And why are traditional publishers willing to take such a big hit to their profits? Continue reading “Is Big Five Publishing Positioning Itself for Large eBook Profits?”
One of the reasons writers give for wanting a real, live, honest-to-goodness contract with a traditional publisher is that they want to see their work in hardcover. Paperbacks are all very fine, but there’s nothing like the heft of a hardcover to make you feel like you’ve arrived. Or so I hear.