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From what I can see, you guys (some of you anyway) have missed the point entirely. We're not comparing Stephen King to John Grisham. We're comparing Stephen King to Stephen King.
Let's say a publisher gives Book "A" to five distributors. If those distributors set their own prices and compete against each other, that's normal. If those distributors have a conference call and agree to artificially set the price for Book "A" at a uniform price and not compete with each other, it's price fixing, and it's in violation of antitrust law.
What's actually happening is dangerously similar to the second case. Rather than the distributors deciding it amongst themselves, it's the publisher that's fixing the price. In this example the distributor is fixing the price of a single product, Book "A", through every distributor. I am not a lawyer and don't fully understand the intricacies of antitrust law, but that sounds like something that should be illegal, for the same reason that it would be illegal if the distributors do it: it screws the consumers by robbing the system of its natural, competitive "free market" tendencies.
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