Thanks to Apple, four of the five major publishing houses imposed so-called agency pricing on their ebook titles (the give away on Amazon is the phrase this pri

Thanks to Apple, four of the five major publishing houses imposed so-called agency pricing on their ebook titles (the give away on Amazon is the phrase this price was set by the publisher). Under agency pricing, the publisher sets the final price to consumers and Amazon cannot discount it at all. Amazon receives 30% of the price on each sale, 70% goes to the publishers, who are setting ebook prices higher than Amazon used to. But print books (and ebooks from random House) are still sold under the old wholesale model. Amazon pays about half the cover price and can set the retail price at whatever it likes, generally at a big discount. Note that in BOTH cases, the publisher has total control over the amount of money it collects on each sale. But under agency pricing, publishers also control the final price to consumers while under wholesale pricing, the retailer gets to set that price.