Con la exuberancia de comentarios desencadenados por el anuncio del iPad están saliendo análisis muy interesantes y números a tener en cuenta (vienen del Financial Times):

At issue is a shift from the wholesale method of selling books, to the “agency” model. [Currently,] Macmillan and other publishers offer Amazon their e-books at 50 per cent of the hardcover price, then allow Amazon to sell them for whatever price it chooses. Around $9.99

This, critics say, has devalued the e-book, conditioning consumers to pay too little and jeopardising the publishing industry in the long term.

Under the agency model, the publisher sets the price for e-books and takes 70 per cent of the sale, giving 30 per cent to the retailer.

Apple is reported to have adopted the agency model with the five publishers it has initially signed up – HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin.

Esto es lo que pensaba al respecto antes de la introducción del iPad alguien que conoce la industria editorial:

The “agency” model is based on the idea that the publisher is selling to the consumer and, therefore, setting the price, and any “agent”, which would usually be a retailer but wouldn’t have to be, that creates that sale would get a “commission” from the publisher for doing so. Since Apple’s normal “take” at the App Store is 30% and discounts from publishers have normally been 50% off the established retail price, publishers can claw back margin even if they don’t get Apple to concede anything from the 30%.

So making this change, if it works, accomplishes three things for big publishers. The obvious two are that they gain a greater degree of control over ebook pricing than they ever had over print book pricing and they get to rewrite the supply chain splits of the consumer dollar.

But the third advantage for the big guys is the most devilish of all: they may gain a permanent edge over smaller players on ebook margins. That is one that, truth be known, was already playing out as Amazon used its leverage to reduce the share smaller publishers got from Kindle sales. But this could institutionalize it.