Annette Green is the agent of Meg Cabot and Duncan Bannatyne. In her blog, The View From Here, she says:
In what seems to me a stupendously ill-judged attempt to revive the ghost of the Net Book Agreement, several major publishers have announced their adoption of the agency model of selling e-books. Online retailers will no longer participate as wholesalers, buying at discount and selling at whatever price suits their margins. Now the price will be set by the publishers and the retailers will simply take an agreed percentage commission for generating the sale.
But the Net Book Agreement worked because it applied universally. You couldn’t go somewhere else to get a book cheaper. Under the agency model we have the absurdity of Stephen Fry’s new book selling on Amazon at £10.04 in paperback while the Kindle version is £12.99. If you visit other retailers you find even bigger discrepancies. Howard Jacobson’s Man Booker winner is £10.03 in hardback on Amazon, but £13.28 as an ebook at waterstones. Ken Follett’s new novel sees the same split: £10.00 hardback, £14.00 download. Just have a browse – you’ll find loads of examples.
A statement from Amazon UK discussing its US experience says “when prices went up on agency-priced books, sales immediately shifted away from agency publishers and towards the rest of our store”. If there’s any truth in this it can’t be good for publishing.
And if the agency model spreads it risks two serious outcomes: the first will be the undermining of the whole, legitimate digital publishing market; the second, as a consequence, and more serious, is the open invitation to piracy. We have to learn the lessons of the music business. Digital technology doesn’t simply affect the way we buy and the way we read. It must also affect the way we sell.
Via The Bookseller
So price fixing only works if everyone follows through on it, on all formats? Who would have thought… 🙂