Many in the publishing world have been thrilled to see members of the influential Big Six group of publishers working together, in ways they never have before, to solve some of the biggest problems facing the industry. Having missed opportunities in the past to fix the major problems that make American publishing so perverse and difficult (such as returns, or discounting) it was heartening to see them head one off at the pass when three of the biggies — Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Hachette — stood up against Amazon. And it was almost as good when those publishers were joined by Simon & Schuster and Penguin to try and create a new market entirely on Apple‘s new iPad.

That adds up to five publishers working together — not bad. But keen observers have been asking what about the sixth publisher, who didn’t join in either the Apple or Amazon efforts? That is, what up with Random House?

Now it can be told: Random House is rejecting the agency model developed for both the Amazon and Apple deals and sticking with business as usual. According to a comment on the mobileread forum from someone attending the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute meeting,

…. for the most part it wasn’t good news for Amazon. When the representative from Macmillan stood up he received a standing ovation from the crowd (mostly independent booksellers)….

The only bright spot for Amazon, and Kindle owners, came from Madeline McIntosh, the President of Sales, Operations, and Digital for Random House. She pointed out that publishers “have no real experience at setting retail prices.” She also revelaed that one of the reasons Random House had not been party to the iBook Store at launch was because of the pricing issues.

In regards to delayed releasing of ebooks, McIntosh said, “Our current policy is we release e-books at the same time as physical books,” followed by “I haven’t been convinced that it’s good for the author or consumer to delay the release. My fear is that the consumer who has fully embraced the technology will buy another e-book that is available or lose interest altogether. What if I train the consumer that the best scenario is to get it free?”