Following American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher’s update in last week’s Bookselling This Week on the Department of Justice investigation into agency pricing and e-book price fixing, regional associations are moving to put pressure on the DoJ through their congressional leaders to keep the agency model in place in order to ensure a more diverse marketplace.
In his update to members, Teicher noted that "we made very clear to DoJ that we believe the agency model has corrected a distortion in the market fostered by major online retailers, which sought to eliminate competition both on the publishing level and at the distribution level."
He added: the critical point we made to DoJ was that any attempts on the government’s part to remedy any alleged wrongdoing must not end the agency model, which has created a more competitive marketplace," noting that since the introduction of the agency model, the market has become not less competitive, but, rather, far more competitive.
The heads of the associations sent a letter drafted by Northern California Independent Booksellers Association executive director Hut Landon, which leads off saying, “I am very concerned that the Department of Justice’s investigation into supposed price fixing with regard to e-books is ignoring the real story and the actual ramifications of a decision in favor of Amazon.com.”
Starting with the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s newsletter this morning, the regionals are also encouraging booksellers to heed Teicher’s words in BTW, “it would be naive to stay on the sidelines at such a critical juncture” and send a similar letter. A sample letter should be posted soon on the NAIBA Web site.
