"I sincerely doubt that Covenant will continue operating independent of DB for very long. Independent operation would be unusual for both DB and the publishing business in general. The result will be fewer books published."
"DB was probably an anti-trust lawsuit waiting to happen as they were, but with the acquisition of Seagull, they’re now so much larger than any of their competition that they fundamentally control the LDS market."
"The reason why we’re concerned is that DB now has the ability to literally put any publisher out of business."
"The problem with this goes back to the whole notion of competition. Prior to the merger, Seagull and Covenant made decisions based on one thing, and one thing alone. What will be best for the companies? If it hurts DB, well, that’s too bad. But all decisions were made to help the company succeed. A lot of those decisions also helped authors and customers. If Covenant sells more books (good for the author), the company succeeds. If Covenant becomes more efficient and is able to lower prices (good for the customer), they will sell more books, and the company succeeds.
"But now, with the merger, all bets are off. Is DB really going to allow Covenant/SB make decisions that will negatively impact DB? Will the ‘independence’ and ‘business as usual’ really go to that level?"
1 comment:
I'm afraid the comments on Motley Vision are right, although I don't believe any anti-trust lawsuit is likely to succeed. This whole situation doesn't help the LDS book buying public, and it doesn't help Mormon culture expand to meet more of the Church.
The podcast Mormon Stories came to the conclusion that we need an organization of independend LDS stores and publishers to start combating the monopoly we are faced with now.
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