Looking for Answers

There are a lot of people debating the pros and cons of the DOJ suit.

That’s not what this post is.

I have a question that has come out of what I’ve been reading on other sites, blogs and articles and would like to ask it here and open up the floor for comments because I am really confused about this one issue and feel like I'm missing something.

 I both self publish and traditionally publish.

 But for the purposes of this post I’m speaking here as a self published author only!

 Many self published authors are saying the Agency model is not in the interest of authors but rather supports publishers and the old system.

 But for me the Agency model has been a huge boon to my self published sales.

 I’ve been able to put my self-publisheid novels up for sale for whatever price I want – and I’ve mostly used $3.99 as well as have done special introductory offers at 99c and free.

 All my prices are far below what traditionally published books cost.  (Including my own btw.)

Many many readers, who won’t pay the price of agency model books and price shop only,  have bought my self pubbed books. (Over 50,000 of them have sold in less than a 8 months which has been terrific.) And I’m sure I am hardly the only author who has benefited by being able to price my self published books below the cost of traditionally published books.

 So my questions is -  if the Agency model goes away won’t self publihsed authors books be at a disadvantage? Won’t self published authors lose?  Can someone please explain to me how the eradication of the Agency model benefits all authors – self and trad published.

 

 

Comments

[elias]

The thinking on self-pubbed authors benefitting goes like this ("you" here is any self-pubbed author):

First, consider a return to wholesale pricing. Under this model, you would set a wholesale price and an MSRP for each of your books, but would have no control over the actual sale price. Amazon and other book sellers, however, have incentive to optimize sales, so they would likely sell it at the price you set or even promote it with discounts for some time, and you would receive the wholesale price for each copy sold regardless of the actual sale price. So you'd be making more per copy. It is possible that your books would be priced higher than you like sometimes but price competition between Amazon, B&N, Apple, and others would discourage this.

I don't think a return to wholesale pricing is what's actually being considered, though, since the agency model itself isn't entirely the problem. The problem is just with some very specific clauses in it, namely those removing retailers' ability to set prices. A more likely arrangement is that you keep the agency model, but with some modifications. You would still set the price for your books, and get 70% of that price (if the price is over a certain amount--same as now). But for the retailer that would only be a maximum price. They would be allowed to promote your books with discounts (increasing your sales without reducing the amount you receive per book) by sacrificing some or all of their cut, or even (though I don't think I've seen this discussed) selling it for less than they give you for your cut.

Either way, trad pub books are unlikely to be priced at the optimal prices of self-pub, because the publishers still won't set prices (wholesale or agcency MSRP) that low. You wil still likely be undercutting them, while making more money on each copy than you do now.

[Mackthewriter.wordpress.com]

Hi MJ,

I've nominated your blog for the One Lovely Blog Award: http://midlistlife.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/thank-you-kathy-griffin/

You can check the link to see how to accept, if you're interested. :)

Debbi

[Lisaalber.wordpress.com]

Hi M.J.,

This is a question I've been pondering too. I'm going to post a pointer to this blog post over on the MWA Facebook page to see if I can drum up some more answers...

Thanks, Lisa