With agency pricing now starting to take hold among some of the largest UK publishers, the Office of Fair Trading is opening an investigation “into whether arrangements that certain publishers have put in place with some retailers for the sale of e-books may breach competition rules”, according to a release obtained by the Bookseller. It’s the first time in four years since the OFT took a long look at industry practices, when the merger between EUK and Bertrams caught its attention and eventually led the Competition Commission to rule it was not anti-competitive. The OFT claims to have received a […]
Agency
Amazon Unintentionally Drives Smashwords Move to Agency Pricing
eBook distributor Smashwords announced today in a posting from founder Mark Coker that as of today all of their titles are being sold on an agency basis. “Our authors and publishers spoke (and some wrote, screamed, begged and politely asked), and we listened,” Coker writes. Smashwords had been using a hybrid model–selling on an agency basis to the iBookstore and Diesel, and selling wholesale to Barnes & Noble, Sony and Kobo. Those three have all agreed to the new agency pricing, with Coker writing: “I think each retail partner decided on their own that what is best for Smashwords authors […]
More on eBooks and Territory
Diesel eBookstore celebrates the restoration of the final agency model publisher to their store with a look at agency six months later. Writing that “the A5 performed an impressive near-checkmate on the eBook chessboard,” they look at the pros and cons of operating in a partial-agency world. Among the weak points–related to the two stories above–are limitations to selling agency ebooks exclusively in the US: “Without exception, all A5 publishers now offer their eBook titles in the US only. Needless to say, our foreign customers are very upset. We, here at Diesel, have been very vocal with our A5 publishing […]
Two CEOs on Price, As the UK Encounters Deja Vu All Over Again
Within the last day two book publishing ceos have put up detailed posts on the costs and complexities of well-executed digital publishing. Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah‘s essay presents information we’ve covered before based on her conference presentations of this material (including at last year’s BEA) but is well worth reading if you have not seen her presentations.Sourcebooks Thomas Nelson ceo Mike Hyatt‘s post “Why Do eBooks Cost So Much? (A Publisher’s Perspective) is interesting both for the points he makes as well as his engagement with his readers, since his blog is designed to elicit comments and he engages diligently […]