Cover Story: Amazon: The Elephant in the Room
Shatzkin sees the agency model as benefiting large publishers because it lets them control pricing much better with e‑books than they could with print books, and also change the way the supply chain allocates consumer dollars. Because the agency model was adopted by five of the six largest publishers, Amazon also can be seen as the impetus behind the summer 2011 filing of a class-action lawsuit against Apple and the five publishing heavyweights—excluding Random House, which delayed adopting the agency model until early 2011—alleging anti-consumer price fixing. That lawsuit, along with several copycat class-action filings, probably won't be resolved for months and possibly years. But whatever happens with it, book pricing won't ever be the same.
%0D%0A%20%20Hyperbole%3F%20Perhaps%20not,%20when%20the%20earth-shaking%20influence%20of%20the%20e‑commerce%20giant's%20recent%20moves%20in%20publishing%20are%20taken%20into%20account.%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookbusinessmag.com%2Farticle%2Fthere-s-no-way-around-it-the-seattle-based-e-tailer-has-become-dominant-force-change-book-publishing-today-whether-that-s-good-or-bad-industry-no-easy-question-answer-418742%2F" target="_blank" class="email" data-post-id="2923" type="icon_link"> Email Email
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