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The Bookseller reports that UK publishers are continuing to move forward with the implementation of agency pricing for e-books, and expect Amazon.co.uk to capitulate to their terms within a matter of weeks.
A few days ago Amazon posted a letter decrying the move to agency pricing, claiming that it was “damaging” to all parties involved (but suggesting by its very existence that Amazon knows it’s fighting a losing battle at this point).
The statement prompted Penguin UK deputy c.e.o. Tom Weldon to defend the model in a letter to agents. He said: “We believe that the agency model is more likely to provide authors with a just reward for their creative content, while establishing a fair price for the consumer.”
It will be interesting to see if time proves him right, on that side of the Atlantic or this. New and popular e-books do not take long at all to hit the torrent sites, and many would-be buyers who feel agency prices are a gyp might end up becoming first-time pirates.
The Bookseller reports that booksellers it spoke to anonymously were cautiously optimistic that agency pricing “would serve as a ‘medium-term’ strategy to prevent one party from dominating digital.” Gee, I wonder which one party that would be?
What’s the truth behind this? I understand that legally the point of sale of an e-book is where the customer resides (as opposed to physical books which is the retailer’s location) so this must be the basis for this imposition of territorial rights by publishers BUT to my knowledge, many English language e-books do NOT have territorial rights restricted to the UK only (I checked last month on Nielsens Online Book Data). It should be easy enough for retailer’s systems to identify from the data Nielsens and/or the distributor/wholesaler provide what the geographic restrictions for an e-book are instead of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. At the same time, publishers should ensure that Nielsens and distributors are given accurate information as to what the territorial restrictions for e-books are (based on the contracts in place) as it appears data integrity for e-books is generally poor and many publishers are reluctant to correct this until issues around pricing, royalties and territorial rights are clarified.
Take my book, Deadly Secrets, as an example – no geographic restrictions whatsoever and now, for example, english speakers people living in Spain (where the book is based) cannot buy the e-book from Waterstones, Smiths or Amazon (fortunately they can still buy it from a Spanish e-book retailer – if they can find the site, read Spanish etc.) but its the retailers, the author and the consumer who are suffering!