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The Net Book Agreement: The Cartel That Fixed British Book Prices
A History of the Price-Fixing Pact That Ruled UK Publishing

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The Net Book Agreement: The Cartel That Fixed British Book Prices For nearly a century, the price of every book sold in Britain was fixed by a secretive cartel known as the Net Book Agreement—a gentleman’s pact that turned literature into a regulated commodity and shaped the nation’s reading habits from the Victorian age to the digital era. This meticulously researched history reveals how publishers and booksellers forged a price‑maintenance system that defended independent shops, nurtured daring authors, and survived wars, paper shortages, and fierce legal battles—until the rise of supermarkets, discount chains, and Thatcher‑era free‑market fervor shattered the pact in a dramatic 1990s showdown.

Through courtroom transcripts, archival letters, and the vivid testimonies of rebels like Terry Maher and the Pentos Group, *The Net Book Agreement* uncovers the clash between cultural preservation and commercial freedom that still echoes today. Readers will discover why the British courts once declared books “different” enough to escape antitrust law, how Penguin’s paperback revolution challenged the cartel, and why the agreement’s collapse paved the way for today’s algorithmic pricing and the dominance of online retailers.

If you’ve ever wondered who really decides the value of a story, this book offers a gripping, eye‑opening journey into the hidden mechanics of the book trade—showing that the battle over prices is as much about who gets to tell our stories as it is about profit margins. Dive in and see how a century‑long experiment in fixed book prices continues to influence the way we buy, read, and think about books in the age of Amazon and beyond.

Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 The Victorian Chaos: Cutthroat Bookselling in the Nineteenth Century
  • Chapter 2 The Visionaries: Frederick Macmillan and the Net Price Ideal
  • Chapter 3 The Pact of 1900: Birth of the Net Book Agreement
  • Chapter 4 The Mechanics of Control: How the Cartel Enforced Retail Prices
  • Chapter 5 The Times Book Club War: Defending the Agreement’s First Major Test
  • Chapter 6 Authors and the Compact: The Society of Authors Weighed In
  • Chapter 7 A Guild Reborn: The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland
  • Chapter 8 Between the Wars: Consolidation, High Culture, and Commercial Fear
  • Chapter 9 The Paper Rebellion: Penguin Books and the Challenge of Mass Markets
  • Chapter 10 Total War and Paper Rationing: The Moral Role of the Regulated Book
  • Chapter 11 The Library Concession: Discounts, Public Funding, and the 10 Percent Rule
  • Chapter 12 The Wind of Competition: Post-War British Industry and Anti-Trust Pressures
  • Chapter 13 The Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act: First Shadows of Scrutiny
  • Chapter 14 The 1962 Trial: Defending the Net Book Agreement in the Restrictive Practices Court
  • Chapter 15 The Judgment of Buckley: Books as 'Different' Cultural Commodities
  • Chapter 16 The Golden Sunset: Thirty Years of Legal Protection
  • Chapter 17 The Retail Revolution: The Rise of Supermarkets and Dillons
  • Chapter 18 American Invasions and Free-Market Ideology: The Thatcherite Paradox
  • Chapter 19 Terry Maher’s Crusade: The Pentos Group Challenges the Establishment
  • Chapter 20 Cracks in the Facade: The Defection of Major Publishers
  • Chapter 21 The Collapse of 1995: Waterstones, Asda, and the Fall of the Pact
  • Chapter 22 The Final Verdict: The 1997 Formal Abolition by the Restrictive Practices Court
  • Chapter 23 The Aftermath: Discount Culture, Supermarkets, and the Loss of the Independent Bookseller
  • Chapter 24 The Amazon Era: Algorithmic Pricing in a Deregulated Market
  • Chapter 25 Legacy of the Cartel: Fixed Book Price Laws Across Europe and the Future of the Word
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Author:

Kathleen F. Gardner

Published By:

MixCache.com Extended Catalog

Type:

Nonfiction

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