EU anger over ebook deal suggests hard times ahead for publishers

What'd I just say? Check the guardian.co.uk: "The perception that selling ebooks by the agency model is unfair (consumers) and illegal (EU) is a big worry for publishing firms ... "

French government says publishers should collaborate over e-book negotiations

The Bookseller: "French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand has urged French publishers to speak with one voice in forthcoming negotiations with Amazon over supplying their e-books for the Kindle. During a visit to Silicon Valley, where he met senior managers of Amazon, Apple and Google, Mitterrand told reporters that if publishers go into negotiations separately, 'in disorder and a climate of permanent rivalry and competition', Amazon would 'fairly rapidly dictate its law'. Publishers should establish common rules on fixed e-book prices and other issues, he added. Referring to the recent raids of five French publishers and the publishers association (SNE) by European Commission competition officials, he said: 'I don’t think that we are in a zone of conflict or zone of difficulty between the French State and the main partners and players. ... .'" Yeah, pal, but you will be in a "zone of conflict" with the European Commission very shortly if you keep advocating the fixing of prices.

Scott Turow and the Authors Guild Still Don't Get It

In the end, the free market always wins. PW: "Authors Guild president Scott Turow has praised Random House’s announcement last week that it is adopting an agency model for selling e-books. 'Book retailers have faced extraordinary challenges in recent years,' he wrote, 'a double whammy of recession and a shift to digital books that had cut many stores out. For anyone who loves bookstores, this is the best news out of the publishing industry in a long time. Random House's move may prove to be a lifeline for some bookstores.' ... "

Rumor: Random House UK considering agency pricing switch

EBOOK MAGAZINE: "Random House UK could follow their US counterpart in adopting agency pricing for ebooks according to internet rumours which also suggest an announcement confirming the move could come as early as this week. ... "

European regulators are right: agency pricing = price fixing

Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers • The Register: "The European Commission has confirmed it raided several companies involved in ebook publishing. The regulators said it carried out 'unannounced inspections' at ebook publishing companies in several member states because it has reason to believe they may have 'violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and other restrictive practices'." They shot down the Net Book Agreement and, mark me, they'll bring down Agency Pricing.

AppleInsider: Random House may soon join iBooks -

Well of course. Hell, agency model was the only issue between them in the first place.

Random House Switches to Agency Model, Joins Other Large Houses in Helping Small Upstarts Get a Jump on Them Pricewise

Thank God. The last thing I needed was RH not trying to gouge customers. PW: "In the agency model, publishers set the price and designate an agent—in this case the bookseller—who will sell the book and receive the commission. Adopting the model for e-books tends to mean e-book prices will rise, something both publishers and independent retailers applaud. Publishers believe low e-book prices devalue their books and cannibalize hardcover sales. Under the agency model once a price has been set it cannot be changed or discounted by the retailer and independent e-book retailers believe the higher prices of the agency model allow them to compete with big e-book vendors."

Authors Guild vs. The Free Market

PW: "To mark the one-year anniversary of what it calls 'the Great Blackout'--when Amazon pulled the buy buttons from Macmillan’s titles to protest the publisher’s adoption of the agency model--the Authors Guild is doing a series of member alerts looking at 'the state of e-books, authorship and publishing. ... " Want to survive the sinking of a ship? Swim away from it before the suction drags you down. The Authors Guild seems to like the Agency Model a hell of a lot more than does the British Office of Fair Trade.

Publishers Shoot Selves in Feet with High eBook Prices

Arielle Ford @ Huffpost: "Recently Amazon.co.uk eliminated their discounts on ebooks within 24 hours of being notified by big publishers (Penguin, Hachette and HarperCollins) that retailers would no longer set the selling price of books; publishers would now dictate the terms. As a result, the pricing of many ebooks were marked up to equal or even higher than the printed versions. This led to a revolt by readers ..."

UK: Agency Pricing Questioned by Waterstone's

The Bookseller:

Waterstone's has publicly queried the agency model, saying its adoption in the UK has 'not been great for anyone' and pricing has not always been fair on consumers.

E-books buyer Alex Ingram was speaking at FutureBook 2010, The Bookseller's digital conference. ...

Ingram said: "No one can judge the success or failure of the agency model just yet, but in the short term it has not been great for anyone. . . What matters most is getting a fair price onto the market, and I don't think that every agency price is fair."

Kieron Smith, managing director of The Book Depository, which has declined to accept agency terms, said: "We do a lot of 'couponing' and the agency model makes it very difficult to do any general discounting. We have a strong customer position that we do not want to change." ...

Smashwords Adopts Agency Model

Smashwords blog: "Our authors and publishers spoke (and some wrote, screamed, begged and politely asked), and we listened. Effective today, all Smashwords retailers are pricing Smashwords books at the price set by the author or publisher. No more discounting. It also means we have significantly increased the royalties we pay our authors and publishers. ..."

Waterstone's Starts Selling Hachette eBooks Again

theBookseller: "Waterstone's is now selling Hachette titles as e-books after removing them two months ago when the publisher switched to agency terms. The move means Waterstone's is on agency terms with both HarperCollins and Hachette, though has yet to the new terms with Penguin. However, the retailer has now stopped offering Card points on all of its e-books, paving the way for agency terms across its entire range of e-book titles."

Stars Fall in UK Protest Over Amazon eBook Prices

guardian.co.uk: "Authors found themselves in the firing line this week as fans furious at sudden rises in Amazon's Kindle prices protested by giving their books one-star reviews on the retailer's website. Iain Banks, Stephen King, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Buchan and Michael McIntyre were among those authors whose books were given new, low-ranking reviews on the basis of their Kindle ebook price, as part of a concerted attempt by readers to voice their displeasure. Earlier this week, Amazon.co.uk was forced to accept new commercial terms from big publishers Penguin, Hachette and HarperCollins, who have switched to the 'agency model' for their ebooks. On this model it is publishers, not retailers, who set the selling price."

Amazon.co.uk Says it will Fight Agency Pricing

theBookseller.com: "Amazon.co.uk has hit out over agency pricing telling Kindle customers that it 'will continue to fight against higher prices for e-books', and has urged publishers 'not to needlessly impose price increases on consumers'. It has also revealed that for those publishers who have adopted the agency model in the US the rate of growth in e-book 'unit sales' is now 'half the rate of growth of the rest of Kindle book sales'."

Piracy and the Agency Model

We've seen the recent study from Attributor talking about the increase in piracy of eBooks. Interesting to see how this increase is timed, to some extent in step with price-gouging from big six publishers through the terms of the Agency Model. The formula is simple: drive up the price, expect more piracy.

Kindle Version of Follett’s ‘Fall of Giants’ and Patterson's Latest Priced Above Hardcovers

Don't blame Amazon. Blame the agency model and the bloated overhead of the "big six" publishers. We need a free market for eBooks. NYTimes.com: "Russ Grandinetti, the vice president of Kindle content for Amazon, suggested that the publishers should lower their e-book prices in response to consumer complaints. 'Setting a price for a Kindle book that is higher than its print counterpart makes no sense,' Mr. Grandinetti said in a statement ... 'It’s bad for readers and authors, and is illogical given the cost savings of digital. We’ve seen publishers do this in a few cases, and we’ve been urging them to stop.'"

With a Friend Like Hachette ...

Philip Jones, FutureBook: "[The Agency Model has] been badly implemented in the UK already. Maybe there are reasons for this, mostly legal for sure, but retailers we've spoken to appear to be unclear why Hachette set a fixed 'D-day' for some, but not—most noticeably for Amazon—others. Some retailers are unhappy that a measure brought in to fix Amazon has actually given the company a huge window of exclusivity at this key period. This is more than a problem of availability and the ugly messages that now appear on some retailers' websites when a Hachette title is picked, consumers planning their Christmas purchases are unlikely to plump for a device with such a demonstrably flakey back-end. If I'm Waterstone's I'm wondering why Hachette has just kicked me in the teeth, when I'm basically on-side with agency pricing."

Britain: In Response to Force-Fed Agency Model, Hachette eBooks Removed from Waterstone's, WHS, and Book Depository Web Sites

Who will blink first? From theBookseller.com:

Hachette e-books have been removed from the websites of Waterstone's, W H Smith, Tesco and The Book Depository after the publisher said it would move to agency terms from today (20th September). But Amazon.co.uk is still selling Hachette titles on the Kindle, and appears to still be setting the prices.

The Bookseller reported late on Friday that Hachette planned to move to the agency model, whereby it sets the prices of e-books, from Monday, with Gardners, which wholesales e-books, telling its customers that this arrangement included Amazon and Apple. An email sent by Gardners read: "These are not Gardner terms, but the publisher's and may I suggest that should you wish to 'discuss' the terms, direct the queries to the publisher."But as of Monday morning Amazon is continuing to set prices of Hachette e-books below that of Apple, which is already on agency terms.

Other retailers, including Waterstone's, Tesco, WH Smith and The Book Depository have removed the e-book editions from sale. Titles such as the Breaking Dawn e-book are listed as "out of stock" on the The Book Depository. On Waterstones.com and Tesco.com they simply do not come up in the search, while on W H Smith's website they are listed as "not available".

Kieron Smith, managing director of The Book Depository, which is supplied e-books by Gardners, said the company had taken the decision to remove the books from sale and did not plan to sign the agreement.

Smith said: "One of the many reasons is we want to apply consistency of offer to the customer. One of the stipulations is we can't offer coupons or discount vouchers. If we did an e-book offer we would have to have a massive list of exceptions for Hachette titles. We are not being straight with the customer. Unless I can control a customer's experience, selling e-books with the price set by the publisher is not something I want to do."

In an email seen by The Bookseller, Gardners, who provides e-books including Tesco, The Book Depository and independent bookshops, said: "[Retailers] shall agree that it shall not alter the customer price of any e-book without [Hachette's] prior written consent." The wholesaler said booksellers must sign up to the agreement if they were still to continue selling Hachette e-books. ...

Great Britain: Amazon Embraces Free Market, Publishers, Agents & Society of Authors Whine

Across the pond, publishers, agents and the Society of Authors sound just like old-media American publishers, agents and the Authors Guild. PS: Waterstones.com is not going to "work." theBookseller.com:

"Amazon is offering exceptional discounts on key autumn e-books as it seeks to drive Kindle sales ahead of a change to agency terms and the launch of rival devices. The highly aggressive pricing could mean a 'game-changing autumn' for the high street, according to literary agent Jonny Geller ...

One agent said while publishers have now broadly accepted the view that an e-book price will be 20%–25% cheaper than the print r.r.p., they are unhappy with Amazon’s massive discounts on top titles. "Amazon is setting the e-book price and they just have to lump it. It gives them no pleasure," he said.

Jonny Geller, m.d. of the books division of Curtis Brown, said the situation was "a re-run of the mid-’90s removal of the Net Book Agreement" with a retailer vastly reducing price as it looked for market share. "I think this autumn is going to be carnage," he said. "I suspect it is all about selling the hardware and Apple don’t seem to be as engaged [with books] as Amazon. It’s an extremely strong autumn for titles, I don’t remember such a good one, and this is time to have the war." He warned: "On the high street it is going to be a game-changing autumn. Waterstones.com has got to work."

Literary agent Ed Victor commented: "Amazon is educating consumers to think £7 is the price of a new hardcover book and we have an industry that has educated consumers to think it is worth twice that. They will end up ruining the industry as e-readers take hold." Tom Holland, chair of the Society of Authors, said: "I think it’s a huge mistake. It’s trashing the brand."

Amazon May Be Winning Its Fight for Lower eBook Prices

Kindle Nation Daily: "While it has been increasingly clear over the past year that Amazon is dominating the market share and price wars among dedicated ebook reader devices, it is now clear that Amazon is also winning its tug of war with traditional book publishers over ebook pricing. Amazon is succeeding dramatically in its efforts to bring an ever increasing number and percentage of all Kindle Store ebooks into its preferred price range between $2.99 and $9.99, inclusive, according to our most recent analysis of the overall pricing composition of the Kindle Store catalog and the 'Top 100 Paid' spots on the Kindle Store bestseller lists ... "