I've already seen some rancor directed toward the recent development in which Amazon has reluctantly agreed to honour publisher Macmillan's pricing model of asking more than $9.99 for e-books. Previously, Amazon had steadfastly refused to sell any e-books for more that signature price, period. I imagine that, to some people, this represents a (possibly temporary) defeat for "the little guy" since $14.99 seems too much to pay for an electronic copy of a book. I totally get that. And I'd personally show my support for that stance (if I were a buyer of e-books) by simply refusing to buy at that price. I wouldn't steal the content (go to a torrent site, for example); I'd eschew it entirely, until such time as it became available at a price that I thought was appropriate for the content and media. Isn't that the right way to drive pricing models: through supply and demand? If you supply what I don't demand, or you supply it at a price that I'm unwilling to pay, then I don't buy it; in other words, I go without. And if enough people think like me, market pressure forces a reset of the price.
As someone who's at least toyed with the idea of making my next book available in electronic form, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I want the right to price my book at whatever I choose, and I want everyone else in the world to have the right to buy it at the price I set or pass it by. Isn't that what a free market pre-supposes? I'd hate to have someone tell me that it had to be priced below a certain mark in order to go on sale. Advice to that effect is one thing; mandating it (as Amazon wants to, with a $9.99 max for e-books) is quite another.
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