Amazon tried, really hard, to get a monopoly on ebooks. Had it worked, you’d have seen ebook prices go up. The agency model should allow publishers to be more responsive.
I’m hoping to get published before long and have spent a lot of time looking at the traditional publishing versus epublishing industries. Epublishing is going to win, but traditional publishers will have their place if they can figure it out.
If I pull up the iBooks store on my ipad, there’s thousands of random, self-published SF or fantasy novels there. If I want something I know is good, I go look at the recently published lists for Tor, or Pyr, or Baen, or whoever. Doesn’t mean the book will be good but it’s a better bet than just randomly downloading stuff.
This quote seems to support Amazon's model:
"Traditionally, publishers sold books to retailers for roughly half of the recommended cover price. Under that "wholesale model," booksellers were then free to offer those books to customers for less than the cover price if they wished. Most physical books are sold using this model."
The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws, the people familiar with the matter said.
Amazon was (and is) aggressive in its pricing. It sells eBooks for less than its competitors, but since when did we demonize a company for charging low prices?
The move by Apple and the book companies was an attempt to force Amazon to raise prices on the eBooks it sells. That (imho) makes them the bad guys in this, not Amazon.
I’m ticked at Apple because they won’t allow my to read an iBook on my MacBook....that’s crazy.
The traditional role of publishers was to filter out the dreck from what was worth reading, and to help promising authors improve their work via editor suggestions. That model will change with e-books.