Net Book Agreement

Imagine if the Net Book Agreement had still been in force.

Specifically, he blames the scrapping of the net book agreement, back in the 1990s.

Since the abolition of the Net Book Agreement in the 1980s, all the money in publishing has been funnelled into pipes that have a wider and a shorter bore; nowadays one big, thick pipeline carrying half the revenue from British retail book sales disappears deep into Jeff Bezos's pockets.

She compares the onrush of digital technology to the abolition of the net book agreement, which resulted in massive discounting of popular titles by supermarkets and a decline in writers' royalties.

The agency model is, in effect, a return to the net book agreement in electronic form.