1) I’m more aware of who publishes what ebooks now. There are plenty of smaller, independent publishers whom I consider more consumer friendly then the agency publishers, and that’s where my ebook dollars have gone.

2) I’m not buying as many ebooks from independent retailers as I used to. Most of my ebook dollars have gone to the ebook retailers associated with my devices. The thought behind this being, with more parity in prices what’s the point in shopping around?

The second point is ironic considering that I’m not buying that many agency priced ebooks. But while the agency pricing has soured me on the major publishers, it did plant the idea that shopping around is a waste of time. Much more convenient to buy from one or two places than 9 or 10 places.

The lack of format choices is disturbing too. For me, getting a good price on a novel with PDF being the only format isn’t a great deal; Mobipocket had much better formatting, even ePub is decent on my PocketBook. I guess eventually I’ll get use to the new world, but I was naive enough to think that eBooks would equalize over time, not get more expensive.

“Perhaps you wanted to be funny, but it sounds that your company simply isn’t prepared to take over the work from “the devil ” Amazon.”

That’s exactly how it sounds like to me. As far as we are into the digital book game, I simply cannot believe that it is as expensive now as it supposedly was in the beginning to distribute these books.

I buy way more from indie sites (I love Smashwords) at this point and will continue to do so. That is not to say that I have not bought a couple of my most favorite authors at asking price but the publishers apparently have no idea what they are missing out on as far as what I am willing to spend to feed my reading addiction. That’s too bad! I would have thought their marketing departments were a little more savvy.

I think you are forgetting the most important group. The readers. After years of complaing that people read less you have discovered the great trick

“no longer have to offer $29.95 eBooks for $9.99 or less in most cases, which we sell at a huge loss.”

As so many other s I will simply skip books I feel are overpriced and support other smaller publisher.

By the way:
“They simply can’t handle all the work, operational costs and maintenance of the constant production flow of eBooks to hundreds of potential retailers. The digital warehouses that were supposed to address this problem are either way too expensive or, unfortunately, are unable to “cut the mustard”. It’s rather perplexing. Wasn’t digital distribution supposed to eliminate the heartache and cost out of the age old problem of print distribution?”

Perhaps you wanted to be funny, but it sounds that your company simply isnt prepared to take over the work from “the devil ” Amazon.

Worth reading http://www.futurebook.net/content/agency-question#comment-216 which looks at Agency vs Distribution models in UK and EU from a legal persepective. I wonder whether UK publishers have actually covered all bases here and suspect the Agency model in UK may be subject to challenge.