"Anyone who thinks that fair pricing that allows authors to make a living is a cabal or cartel system is deep in the grip of Napsterism." - tweet by Salman Rushdie
I think Rushdie is arguing for the Agency Model. Which is the model that lets publishers enforce a price for a book, which was pressured on Amazon by the big publishers, no longer allowing them to put bestsellers for sale for under ten bucks, but letting publisher set a higher price if they wish. This model is now under attack legally, because it was enforced by a "cartel".
The flaw in Rushdie's thinking here is, I think, that "fair pricing" fails to take into view that sales drop with higher prices, so maximum profit is found somewhere in the middle. It’s great that an author wants 20 bucks for his book, but if that price cuts sales by 80% compared to ten bucks, it helps him very little.
Where the "middle" is, is of course the Question. One can get survey software which plot a bell curve based on a survey one makes and takes.
The second flaw is that arguing against enforcement of high prices is hardly "napsterism", by which I take it he means that a person wants to get everything for free no matter what. That's quite a leap from "over ten dollars is too much for a normal ebook" to "I want to get all ebooks for free".
I'm not arguing against people's rights to set their own prices, that is of course a given right. And indeed Amazon's strategy, to buy books at full price and sell them at a loss to gain market share, is debatable from competition viewpoints, and certainly from their competitors' viewpoints! But it's a complex issue.
I'm not arguing against people's rights to set their own prices, that is of course a given right. And indeed Amazon's strategy, to buy books at full price and sell them at a loss to gain market share, is debatable from competition viewpoints, and certainly from their competitors' viewpoints! But it's a complex issue.
