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...the responsibility for pricing decisions should rest with authors and publishers. If they price fairly and competitively, customers will reward them. If they
by jackfoxy 15y ago
...the responsibility for pricing decisions should rest with authors and publishers. If they price fairly and competitively, customers will reward them. If they price too high, customers will migrate to lower-cost books.
I agree authors and publishers should set prices, but not in collusion. As for the argument consumers will migrate to lower-cost books, that may hold for some genres, but books are not really fungible. The books I am interested in are each unique works.
- radicalbyte 15y agoIf I understand his argument correctly, @markcoker is suggesting that if Lord of the Rings is too expensive people will buy Eragon instead? Okay, could understand the lack of knowledge of basic economics, but I'd have hoped that someone who has started their own business would at least have read a couple of wikipedia pages on the subject.
- tzs 15y agoAre you suggesting that people will buy LoTR no matter how high the price? Or are you suggesting that if LoTR is priced too high for someone who wants to read it, they will give up on reading rather than entertain themselves with some other book?
- quandrum 15y agoI disagree. Pricing decisions should rest with the party doing the selling. They have both the most market information and most expertise. They can find equilibrium prices the fastest and most efficiently. Author's and publisher's are free to set up stores and set the price on the goods they sell. But if they have an intermediary, they should set an MSRP and accept the price might be changed.
- jackfoxy 15y agoI shouldn't have stated it in a way that sounds like I advocate authors/publishers setting prices. They should be free to pursue whatever business model they choose, just not colluding on fixing price.