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According to a GalleyCat post, we should get ready to be gouged again as HarperCollins’ contract talks with Amazon hint that the publisher is planning a return to the Agency Pricing model for eBooks (like many price-fixing publishers have already done) where they set their own prices regardless of what the retailer, consumer or market will bear.

The Agency Model forces the price of eBooks as high or higher than the “paper” book equivalents. This has the effect of filling publishers’ pockets with money, and cooling down the eBook Revolution where the keen and tech-savvy public does not buy the corporate sob story about eBooks costing as much to publish as hard covers.

The worst part of that is readers will again suffer the dirty end of the Agency Model stick.

One promising note. The eBook Revolution started out this way. As the big publishers undercut and damaged the eBook sales of their own stables of writers, Indie authors priced their wares to sell and sell they did. Readers got realistic prices and a long list of new authors that had been kept out by the corporate gatekeepers.

Oh, the Agency Model is good for the eBook pirates too since agency model pricing makes stealing eBooks well worth the effort. So get ready for those complaints again!

I can’t believe we’re going back to square one. The Indies should prep for a bump in sales!