DOJ antitrust suit against Apple

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that it may bring an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and several of the largest book publishers over possible price-fixing.  If you're not familiar with the case, the details get a little bit into the nitty-gritty of the way that the publishing industry has traditionally operated.  From the linked article:

"Apple is said to have helped push book publishers away from their traditional pricing model — publishers would typically charge distributors about half the cover price for an eBook — and into an “agency model,” which would let publishers set the end-user price of an eBook and Apple would take a 30% commission on each sale. This new model is said to have made it difficult for booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble to compete, because they would regularly discount the prices of new books and trim margins in an effort to promote sales."

I will admit that, on the one hand, a DOJ lawsuit that brings ebooks back down to impulse-buy territory would be welcome for me as a reader (if you're a Kindle or Nook user, you've probably noticed that the $9.99 ebooks that were like crack when you first got your reader have now crept up to $12 or even $15). 

But on the other hand, we at Katherine Press have always seen the rising cost of ebooks from major publishers as an opportunity.  The biggest reason that publishers have been able to command steep premiums on their books is that they were guarantors of quality: you can be reasonably certain that your Simon & Schuster book will not only be free of typos, but will also be edited to read smoothly and professionally.  The same, sadly, cannot be said for many self-published books.  What the industry needs, then, is some cheaper institutions that could vouch for the quality of ebooks.  At Katherine Press, we've always seen that as being a role we wanted to take on.  Readers should be able to trust that, even with lower price points, you will get a well written and worthwhile book when you buy a Katherine Press publication. 

Whether or not this DOJ lawsuit happens, what we're watching is an industry in the process of metamorphosis.  Those left standing and financially strong will be the ones who didn't try to preserve the old ways of doing business but embraced the changes.  Books aren't going anywhere--they're just changing.  And if the industry can't accept that, well, that's not our problem.  That's our opportunity.