I don't buy the variants but they hurt the regular cover ebay sales.
They don't care about the secondary market, they are trying to gain readership.
Isnt the secondary market a driving force in many of the books that develop readership bumps? To totally shut out and "not care" about a sure fire way to increase direct sales would be very naive.
In other words, they absolutely care about the secondary market no matter what they say publicly. Its most definitely not their primary objective but if they are good business people they for sure want that part of the industry buzzing.
I believe its a fine line in trying to gain readership in the begging and still having some down the line. I believe many creators today are trying to start something off so its a grab as much as I can right off the bat type of a deal but I think that hurts sales later down the road where the 2nd hand market makes its biggest push.
Then again, who knows, maybe I am wrong and creators have zero business sense and only attack one avenue. Ive been wrong before