Thread by @patio11

@TheJonFedor @FreakyTheory @benthompson @amazon Physical books are sold wholesale, where the retail outlet (Amazon) can decide the price. Many publishers contract with Amazon on an "agency model", where the publisher sets a mandatory price and Amazon gets to keep the cut.

Amazon and publishers have VERY different incentives.

@TheJonFedor @FreakyTheory @benthompson @amazon Amazon will happily undercut MSRP on physical books, because they're more efficient than every other seller of books, and your margin is their opportunity.

Amazon will happily undercut *themselves* on Kindle, because it reorients reading behavior to start in Amazon ecosystem.

@TheJonFedor @FreakyTheory @benthompson @amazon Publishers basically don't want to turn off Amazon distribution but really, really don't want a world in which Amazon owns every producer and consumer of the written word and then says "Actually, strictly speaking... we don't need you, Big Five. At all."

So they set prices high.