He posted a follow-up comment saying that he was going to be reading and responding to comments, and making a list of unanswered questions.

So at least that’s something.

Thus, we will continue to be presented with the phenomenon of the new hardcover on sale at Amazon for $16 next to its ebook edition at $10 (if it’s a ‘best-seller’ but otherwise the ebook edition will be, oh say, $15).

And who will buy the lesser-quality, DRM’d, soon-to-be-unreadable ebook when the higher-quality, free, readable-for-a-century, hardcover is only $1 more?

This whole move by publishers is a chimera. Indeed, I suspect they are just trying either to strangle ebooks in the cradle, as usual, or trying to delay the impact of ebooks until ‘we can figure it out — who knows, I might be retired by then’ — also as usual.

Massive fail. “This will not stand,” as one of our presidents said once.

- asotir

They may be right about the first, but they are most likely wrong about the second; existing evidence is that a 30% price hike will likely result in a 50%+ drop in sales of the over-priced ebooks.

At that point they will either admit they screwed up (riiigghht!) or pretend there is no ebook market and stop offering ebooks altogether.
Buggy-whips forever!

Publishers have always set the list price to paperbacks, and it’s always been higher than necessary so a distributor can give you a “deal.” Ebooks will follow the same pattern. That’s the way the game works.

Do they really think readers will be *thrilled* at paying US$1-4 for the privilege of a DRM-encumbered digital paperback?

This baloney might fly if the 6 BPHs were the only game in town. But they aren’t and this kind of condescending, take-it-or-leave-it “pronouncement from olympus” is going to ensure they won’t remain in control much longer.

This forced 30% price increase is going to cost them a whole lot more down the road.

And isn’t everyone happy that Macmillan is finally paying attention to readers?

The retailers get guaranteed 30% for performing a simple electronic transaction but lose all ability to grow or protect market share via efficiencies and price. They’re left trying to find other means like exclusive offerings.

The consumers get stuck with the resulting exclusive deals, incompatible DRM schemes, the inability to transfer their purchases, no competition and higher prices.

What’s not to like?

The best antidote to piracy is reasonable pricing. Music piracy is way down since it became possible to buy what you want from iTunes cheaply, easily, and without any risk of snagging a trojan (or a lawsuit).

Most people aren’t techies like you or I. Give them the choice of paying a reasonable price (for their own personal values of “reasonable”) for an e-book they want in a format they can use, and using unfamiliar and potentially risky software (remember the flap about how much confidential information got shared out by people who installed peer-to-peer software without knowing what they were doing?) to find a book that may not even be there, let alone in a format they can load onto their device, and they’ll happily shell out.