Price of eBooks Should Go Down Soon
#1
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has approved the U.S. Justice Department's settlement with a trio of electronic book publishers accused of conspiring in a price-fixing scheme orchestrated by the late Steve Jobs.

Among other things, the agreement requires the publishers — Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster — to abandon the pricing system that they had conceived with Apple before it released its iPad tablet in 2010. The change is supposed to come within the next week.

The ruling released Thursday cast aside the strident objections of Apple, other book publishers, book sellers and authors who argued the settlement will empower Internet retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. to destroy the "literary ecosystem" with rampant discounting that most competitors can't afford to match.

Those worries were repeatedly raised in court filings about the settlement. More than 90 percent of the 868 public comments about the settlement opposed the agreement.

Apple Inc. and two of the objecting publishers, Macmillan and the Penguin Group, also had argued it would be unfair to approve the settlement before they have a chance to fight the government's price-fixing allegations in a trial scheduled to begin next June.

But U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in New York decided the settlement "appears reasonably calculated to restore retail price competition to the market."

In its objections, Apple had raised the specter of appealing if Cote approved the settlement. Apple had no immediate comment Thursday on Cote's decision.

In a statement, the Justice Department said it is "pleased the court found the proposed settlement to be in the public interest and that consumers will start to benefit from the restored competition in this important industry."

Cote's ruling comes nearly five months after the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging Apple worked with the largest digital book publishers to rig a system designed to counteract Amazon.com's pricing practices. The approach, known as "the agency model," calls for book publishers, rather than retailers, to establish the prices of each title.

Under the agency model, merchants make their money through a commission. In Apple's case, that translated into the standard 30 percent cut it collects on most products sold through its iTunes stores.

The publishers' switch to the agency model came just before Jobs unveiled the iPad in January 2010. Before he died 11 months ago, Jobs confided to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he had convinced the major publishers that the agency model would be the best solution for all the key players in the rapidly growing e-book market.

"We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30 percent,'" Jobs told Isaacson. "And, yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway."

Rest of Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06...lp00000003
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#2
Don't you love how Big Business hates government regulations until they need them to impede 'pure' capitalism?
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#3
(09-08-2012, 10:00 AM)TennisMom Wrote: Don't you love how Big Business hates government regulations until they need them to impede 'pure' capitalism?

Ain't that the truth Mad
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#4
I find it ironic that publishers and authors seem to be saying that Amazon will eat their lunch if this transpires. Most of them sell there books through Amazon in the first place!

There are a ton of books out there by up and coming authors that can be bought for little or nothing. I refuse to pay some of the prices that authors are asking for their e-books when I can buy a hard copy paperback at Costco for less.
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#5
I can't buy the top dollar Kindle books unless I have information/knowlege that it's worth it. (the new Jack Reacher is coming out the 11th)

The other day I spent $2.99 for a Kindle book, 'The Price of Silence'.
According to the user reviews it sounded like a good $2.99 purchase.
It was a teenage romance novel...I kid you not.
It even seemed to be written by a teenager.
Nothing against teenagers, but if I would have paid $11.99 for the novel I'd be extremely irritated.
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#6
On Facebook, sign up for Ereader News Today and Pixel of Ink. They will send you daily notices of all kinds of free and low priced books. I have gotten some great ones from them and they don't bother you otherwise.
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#7
(09-08-2012, 10:19 PM)imaham Wrote: On Facebook, sign up for Ereader News Today and Pixel of Ink. They will send you daily notices of all kinds of free and low priced books. I have gotten some great ones from them and they don't bother you otherwise.

Thanks, imaham!!!
(smoooooooooooch)
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#8
Ereader News has shut down...but I ordered Stripping Down on my Netbook and had it delivered to my Kindle Fire...for free...so effortlessly.

Your helpful advice is sure to make my Kindle experience so much more fulfilling. I can just download books and then have several to choose from when I want to read, yes?

Thanks again so much.
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#9
(09-08-2012, 10:29 PM)Clone Wrote:
(09-08-2012, 10:19 PM)imaham Wrote: On Facebook, sign up for Ereader News Today and Pixel of Ink. They will send you daily notices of all kinds of free and low priced books. I have gotten some great ones from them and they don't bother you otherwise.

Thanks, imaham!!!
(smoooooooooooch)

Let me know how it works out for you. Between the two of them, I get at least 20 and sometimes more offers each day for free books. I think I have something like 350 books now on my Fire and while there is a dud once in awhile, most of them so far have been pretty good....some exceptional. I think TM is also getting some books via them. Which reminds me. There is an author that I like a lot that I mentioned some time back. R.E. McDermott. His first book was called Deadly Straits and is an action/adventure novel. I have corresponded with him quite a bit and he is really a nice guy. He is retired merchant marine and his books have a lot of seagoing adventures involved in them. He just recently released his second book, Deadly Coast and I was fortunate enough to have him send me a pre-release copy. I thought it was as good as the first one if not better. I think Deadly Straits is being offered as a special for 2.99 on Amazon and Deadly Coast is up at 4.95. Not sure that genre would be your cup of tea but never can tell!
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#10
Are you sure about it shutting down? I just went there and looks like they are still up and running. Try this

http://www.facebook.com/EreaderNewsToday

And yes, as long as you have an Amazon account, the books will be sent to your Kindle or your cloud and you can read them and retain them as long as you want. The author gets credit for a book sale even though you don't pay anything for it. Just be careful if you are looking at a book from either Pixel or ENT as sometimes they list a book for free but it only stays up for a few hours and then goes back to regular price. Just make sure when you click on it that it shows 0.00 as the price when you click to buy it, even though you are not charged anything.
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#11
(09-08-2012, 08:59 PM)Clone Wrote: I can't buy the top dollar Kindle books unless I have information/knowlege that it's worth it. (the new Jack Reacher is coming out the 11th)

The other day I spent $2.99 for a Kindle book, 'The Price of Silence'.
According to the user reviews it sounded like a good $2.99 purchase.
It was a teenage romance novel...I kid you not.
It even seemed to be written by a teenager.
Nothing against teenagers, but if I would have paid $11.99 for the novel I'd be extremely irritated.


The NYT had an article last week about some of the book reviews being bought and paid for. Yes, it's true. I wondered why some of the cheap books I bought (about five of them) were so... Underwhelming... So, beware of those reviews.
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#12
(09-10-2012, 10:12 AM)TennisMom Wrote: The NYT had an article last week about some of the book reviews being bought and paid for. Yes, it's true. I wondered why some of the cheap books I bought (about five of them) were so... Underwhelming... So, beware of those reviews.

That's crappy...and to make matters worse, did I write a review? No.
I shall do that today.
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#13
(09-10-2012, 10:39 AM)Clone Wrote:
(09-10-2012, 10:12 AM)TennisMom Wrote: The NYT had an article last week about some of the book reviews being bought and paid for. Yes, it's true. I wondered why some of the cheap books I bought (about five of them) were so... Underwhelming... So, beware of those reviews.

That's crappy...and to make matters worse, did I write a review? No.
I shall do that today.

You can't trust anybody these days. It's so dishonest to pay people to write reviews of your books. Of course they'll write a glowing review. Anything goes nowadays, though.

It's about time the prices of Kindle books came down because people won't spent $12.99 on an e-book if they can get it for half that somewhere else.
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#14
More free and reduced price Kindle (or Nook) books:

http://bookbub.com/deals/tag/kindle/
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#15
Yeah well as soon as the price for ebooks goes down they'll come out with F books and your ebook collection will be as worthless as Wonky's wall of 8 tracks.
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#16
I'm glad to see that user reviews are now getting some scrutiny; it is long overdue in all sorts of venues; travel, entertainment, books, and much more. I have long thought the practice would lead to rampant fraud; when money is involved, and few checks are in place, it begs for fraud.

So, what is one to do? Not much. Although algorithms have been developed to detect the most obvious fraudulent reviews, it did not take long for those to be outwitted with new, sophisticated programming.

Find critics and reviewers of substance who actually make a living by reviewing the areas you are interested in; movies, books, music, travel sites and hotels, etc, etc, etc. There really is no substitute for professional critics. The whole "user critic" phenomena is a joke. Who has the time to waste on garbage that has been perfumed? If you insist on reading "user reviews", do it on sites that only allow "verified customers". At least you will know that the reviews are from actual people, and not a program.
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#17
(09-08-2012, 11:27 PM)imaham Wrote: Are you sure about it shutting down? I just went there and looks like they are still up and running. Try this

http://www.facebook.com/EreaderNewsToday

And yes, as long as you have an Amazon account, the books will be sent to your Kindle or your cloud and you can read them and retain them as long as you want. The author gets credit for a book sale even though you don't pay anything for it. Just be careful if you are looking at a book from either Pixel or ENT as sometimes they list a book for free but it only stays up for a few hours and then goes back to regular price. Just make sure when you click on it that it shows 0.00 as the price when you click to buy it, even though you are not charged anything.

Oh, btw, thanks again...I don't know what I had run across.
I have TONS of books on my Kindle now; instead of buying one every time I finish one, I just have to choose from my selection.

Know what else? I'm not sure how good it is for one's eyes, but if one is having trouble sleeping, one can read with their Kindle with no light on...meaning you aren't disturbing your bed mate.

I don't know how I lived without this thing. Laughing
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#18
(09-13-2012, 06:29 PM)Chris Wrote: I'm glad to see that user reviews are now getting some scrutiny; it is long overdue in all sorts of venues; travel, entertainment, books, and much more. I have long thought the practice would lead to rampant fraud; when money is involved, and few checks are in place, it begs for fraud.

So, what is one to do? Not much. Although algorithms have been developed to detect the most obvious fraudulent reviews, it did not take long for those to be outwitted with new, sophisticated programming.

Find critics and reviewers of substance who actually make a living by reviewing the areas you are interested in; movies, books, music, travel sites and hotels, etc, etc, etc. There really is no substitute for professional critics. The whole "user critic" phenomena is a joke. Who has the time to waste on garbage that has been perfumed? If you insist on reading "user reviews", do it on sites that only allow "verified customers". At least you will know that the reviews are from actual people, and not a program.

Amazon actually has a feature that shows if someone has actually bought the book when they give a review. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know about it and just breeze through the 5 star stuff and so it goes. I actually read the 1 and 2 star reviews first, providing they have actually bought the book and go from there.
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#19
There are actually businesses which are set up to do reviews, for a price of course. One guy made $20,000 in a month, doing reviews on books he hadn't even read because he was swamped. This is so wrong. From now on, I'll stick to the NYTimes book review and Publisher's Weekly.

BTW, if you like vampire books (I don't) a friend of mine has just published one called, "Red Roses, Bloody Snow". I bought it despite my antipathy toward that particular genre. I'll let you all know what I thought of it. I'd like my friend to be successful, of course, but only if it is a really decent book. Move over, Anne Rice, here comes S.Z. Knapp!
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