nl-lgflagThe Bookseller reports that Secretary Halbe Zjilstra from the Netherlands’ Department of Culture has announced there will be no fixed price for e-books in the Netherlands. The Netherlands (like much of Europe) has fixed prices on paper books, meant to secure wide availability of titles. However, e-books still have less than 1% of market share in the Netherlands.

A study commissioned by the Netherlands government determined that even though the rise of e-books might harm bookstores, slapping a fixed price on them will not help bookstores and will harm the overall e-book market by diminishing innovation.

I have to say, good for the Netherlands. Now, if only English-language publishers could be convinced of the same conclusions!

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