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Retailers are anticipating that Amazon.co.uk will sign up to agency terms within a matter of weeks, despite the internet company’s denunciation of the model as damaging.
It is understood that publishers will press on with agency pricing, despite the retailer’s public resistance. HarperCollins and Penguin are seen as the likeliest houses to jump next, following Hachette UK’s move in September. Macmillan, Canongate and Simon & Schuster are expected to follow soon after.
The moves will effectively force Amazon to capitulate as happened in the US earlier this year, when Macmillan US and Hachette USA forced through the shift.
Hachette’s implementation of agency pricing has led Waterstone’s and W H Smith to temporarily remove its e-books from sale. None of the parties wished to comment on when the impasse would be resolved. Hachette declined to comment, choosing to stick by its position that it was in “a short-term transition period from wholesaler terms to the agency model”.
Amazon has continued to set its own prices for Hachette e-books, but last Thursday, in a letter posted on its Kindle forum, it said agency was “a damaging approach for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers alike”, signaling to Amazon watchers that a deal over the new terms was close.
The letter claimed that price increases had frustrated readers and caused booksellers, publishers and authors to lose sales. It said that when US publishers switched to agency, sales moved towards e-books not on agency pricing.
“In the UK, we will continue to fight against higher prices for e-books, and have been urging publishers considering agency not to needlessly impose prices increases on consumers,” it said.
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.”
In February, Amazon.com removed “buy” buttons from Macmillan US titles in a dispute over agency terms before signing up to the agency model some weeks later.
Booksellers spoken to on condition of anonymity said that while unhappy that their ability to set pricing would be removed, they believed it would serve as a “medium-term” strategy to prevent one party from dominating digital.