They Did a Bad, Bad Thing
Published December 20th, 2011 | 
A while back, I said that even though I was firmly against the “agency model” for pricing e-books, I did not believe that Apple colluded with publishers. Well… as the lawsuit against Apple and the mainstream publishers moves forward, information has come to light to make me rethink my initial conclusion. If we roll up our sleeves, put on a pair of tillman gloves and get to work investigating the matter further, we find that it was an unnamed publishing insider who tipped Grant & Eisenhofer, a law firm hoping to represent consumers in the matter, to the conspiracy. They could be blowing smoke. The “publishing insider” could be full of shit. However, If there is indeed actual proof that there was collusion, perhaps we can finally put an end to the agency model.
Why the Apple Agency Model is Good for Pirates and Self-Publishers
Published December 16th, 2011 | Mainstream publishers still don’t get it: book buyers do not want to pay more than $10 for an e-book. They are deluding themselves if they believe jacking-up ebook prices is a good idea. Higher ebook prices do not translate into more ebooks sales. And higher ebook prices are not exactly helping hardcover sales.
So who does benefit from the agency model? Well . . . digital pirates for one. Why pay $16 for a an ebook version of a bestselling book when you can download it for free on a torrent site? Sure, there will always be a market for pirated material, but most readers would pay for those books if the price was friendlier to consumers.
Second, self-publishers are also benefitting from the agency model. Readers looking for new books to read on their Kindle are going to be a bit more willing to try a new author selling an e-book for $1.99 than mainstream bestseller priced equal to or above the trade book price. Over the long haul, the more mainstream publisher fight for the agency model the more it will hurt them.
The Kindle Fire is Taking Fire
Published December 6th, 2011 | You wouldn’t ask a bookshelf speaker manufacturer what the the best bookshelf speakers are. Naturally, the manufacturer would claim that it made the best and would no so subtly suggest that its competition makes a lesser product. And so, you can pretty much trust that any pro-Apple content publisher online, will be slanted in favor of Apple and prejudiced against Apple’s competition.
Such is the case with Paid.org is notable for it’s negative stories about Amazon. Recently, Paid.org ran an article critiquing the Kindle Fire. The author took out-context excerpts from a report by usability expert, Jakob Nielsen, to make a case that the Kindle Fire is a piece of crap. Nielsen wasn’t so much critiquing the Kindle Fire device in his post, as he was highlighting a basic display problem when viewing full-page content on a small screen. His point is that most content is not designed to correctly display on a 7-inch tablet device. Of course he did point out that he thought the device was “too heavy,” but, given that his study was done with just 4 participants, one can hardly take his conclusions at face value. That didn’t stop the article’s author from using Nielsen’s conclusions to disparage the device. It’s notable that most of the comments disagreed with both Nielsen and the author of the article and were clearly smart enough to recognize the the bias:
