Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
And in Europe many countries have official price fixing for books, that would be finished. US sellers (who generally are the cheapest) would also have to start collecting taxes (sales tax or VAT) for people living in different countries. You must know European governments, they will hold on to every cent of tax revenue until you pry it from their cold dead hands.
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I don't see it that way. The European book market is mainly separated into language regions. There is the German language market that covers Germany Austria, the main part of Switzerland and parts of some adjoining countries, The French market with France and parts of Switzerland and Belgium, the Italian market with Italy and parts of Switzerland and the English market with the UK and Ireland. Usually one publisher serves all the European markets for one book in one language. So one publisher will sell a given book in all German language markets, irrespective whether he is located . While there are usually some price differences in these markets they are so small that the publisher could set one price for all of them. The prices of the Swiss market would have to be tied to the € markets. Not trivial but doable.
There is no reason why the British publishers shouldn't be able to service the whole European market for the English version of a book. Prices would effectively have to be tied to the GBP. No reason to admit US sellers into the market on an equal footing.