Quote:
Originally Posted by Chapter One
I have been wanting to ask what everyone means by 'agency' books, I have never understood that. But, even though it does seem to be tied into what codes do or dont work, I just havent asked as I dont want to upset the minority  |
Generally speaking it means the big 6 publishers because they entered into an "agency" agreement and had their hands slapped for collusion (at least in the US) along with Apple. So BEFORE they colluded to set prices of books all the same across all retailers with the price THEY wanted (no discounting allowed) is referred to as "pre-agency" pricing. Then there was agency pricing and now there is "The government says you can't collude" so we are "post agency." But even post agency you don't see the discounting you used to see.
The agency agreement was actually with retailers and said, 'You can't sell our books unless you price them the way we say to price them.' The problem is that they all met and decided to do this, along with Apple, thus the collusion issues.