Reminds me a bit of the Net Book Agreement that we used to have in the UK.
It's purpose was to keep prices to the same RRP and use money from big sellers to support less popular, but important, titles. I'm not sure it always worked to that ideal. Then there were a few chain companies and supermarkets that decided to dissent and this led to the end of the NBA loss of a lot of smaller booksellers. At that point, US giant Borders attempted to get into the UK market but were quickly wiped out by the established sellers. Amazon, which started out as a bookseller did survive as they diversified. Anyone remember Computer Manuals? They faded away.
I believe that France and Germany have retained their versions of the Net Book Agreement.
I don't know why I'm rambling about this, apart from the point of publishers did try to enforce pricing control but ultimately were challenged.
It's purpose was to keep prices to the same RRP and use money from big sellers to support less popular, but important, titles. I'm not sure it always worked to that ideal. Then there were a few chain companies and supermarkets that decided to dissent and this led to the end of the NBA loss of a lot of smaller booksellers. At that point, US giant Borders attempted to get into the UK market but were quickly wiped out by the established sellers. Amazon, which started out as a bookseller did survive as they diversified. Anyone remember Computer Manuals? They faded away.
I believe that France and Germany have retained their versions of the Net Book Agreement.
I don't know why I'm rambling about this, apart from the point of publishers did try to enforce pricing control but ultimately were challenged.
Statistics: Posted by andrew_pi — Sun Jul 20, 2025 10:39 am