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How does the agency model affect the retail prices of e-books?
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e-book
An e-reader on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Germany, 2012.
Under the agency model, publishers require retailers to sell e-books at fixed prices. This contrasts with other business models where retailers are permitted to set their own retail prices, provided they pay the distributor the required wholesale price for each unit sold.1
This pricing structure is part of the evolving and often contentious landscape of the publishing industry, where competing interestsāsuch as consumer expectations for lower prices and publisher needs to maintain sustainable business modelsādrive negotiations over how digital content is valued and sold.1