Interesting thoughts these by Zoe Faulder at Blackhall Publishing:
3. Mutual support
The independents are possibly among the hardest hit; with limited resources very little capital can be put towards development and innovation as it is all being put into the basic running and survival of the business. One way to tackle this is by joining forces with other independents and spreading the resources. In a small market like Ireland it will also bring down the number of individual players working against each other. This idea seems to have been bandied about over the years but very few seem willing to take the plunge. With this option the independence of the business is diminished, which can be quite an unattractive side effect.
via Comment | Booksellers and Publishers: What are the options? | Irish Publishing News.
Eoin Purcell's Blog 
This is something I have opined on many times and I agree with Zoe. One extract from my post at Teleread on pricing and perceptions of where to get quality reading:
http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/ebooknewser-interviews-smashwords-mark-coker-on-e-book-pricing-costs/
“The key to breaking the grip of the Agency model and Amazon is the Indie market offering better value and equally quality product.
In the coming three years the Indie market needs to do more then sit back and offer cheap eBooks. They need to work together to communicate to the reading public that their (and mine) prejudice view that big publishing companies are a guarantee of the best eBooks is false. They need to communicate that the premise on which this prejudice is false and Indie publishers/eSellers sell good quality eBooks. I believe that they should get together and form an association to say “Indies sell great eBooks”.”
Hear hear!