Macmillan's dynamic pricing
anonymous
February 4 2010, 00:34:44 UTC
I agree that people who suggest some kind of conspiracy theory about publishers wanting to kill ebook format are just bat-shit crazy, as I don't suppose any publisher is interested in being out of one of the few markets in which book sales should increase. But it's not like Macmillan's been nice to the ebook market, and by extension to this market's customers, few as they might be.
At Fictionwise, which works on an agency deal, like the one Macmillan wants to work out with Amazon, most of the ebooks whose respective MMPB versions already came out are still priced near or above $14.00, which would be, according to Macmillan's CEO letter almost the price for new ebooks on Amazon, concurrent with the hardcover release. No wonder these people are not so eager to see Macmillan's dynamic pricing. So, while they're flat out wrong to say publishers are in for the destruction of ebooks, it seems to me that they're not so wrong to be concerned over the future prices of Amazon's ebooks under Macmillan's agency deal.
Not that I'm trying to justify them being completely out of their minds, far from me to try this. I for one am willing to believe Macmillan's CEO dynamic pricing promise. But maybe all this should work as a wake up call for Macmillan and other publishers that whether they already have business plans for the ebooks or not this market is already there and they should start noticing it.
Re: Macmillan's dynamic pricingrobotech_masterFebruary 4 2010, 04:15:32 UTC
Given how Macmillan has mishandled "dynamic pricing" at Fictionwise over the ten years it has had to get it right, it is easy to understand how and why people are afraid that the leopard has not changed his shorts.
And as I said above, a ten-year pattern of willful cluelessness can look an awful lot like malice aforethought from the right perspective.
At Fictionwise, which works on an agency deal, like the one Macmillan wants to work out with Amazon, most of the ebooks whose respective MMPB versions already came out are still priced near or above $14.00, which would be, according to Macmillan's CEO letter almost the price for new ebooks on Amazon, concurrent with the hardcover release. No wonder these people are not so eager to see Macmillan's dynamic pricing. So, while they're flat out wrong to say publishers are in for the destruction of ebooks, it seems to me that they're not so wrong to be concerned over the future prices of Amazon's ebooks under Macmillan's agency deal.
Not that I'm trying to justify them being completely out of their minds, far from me to try this. I for one am willing to believe Macmillan's CEO dynamic pricing promise. But maybe all this should work as a wake up call for Macmillan and other publishers that whether they already have business plans for the ebooks or not this market is already there and they should start noticing it.
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And as I said above, a ten-year pattern of willful cluelessness can look an awful lot like malice aforethought from the right perspective.
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