Fixed Book Price Act

Fixed book price, a legal obligation for Dutch books

Did you know that many Dutch books fall under the fixed book price? This is a legal obligation. We would be happy to tell you more about it.

To start, an advantage: children's books subject to the fixed book price have the same selling price everywhere, until the fixed book price potentially expires or is adjusted. So it doesn't matter where you buy the book.

What is the fixed book price?

The fixed book price is a legal obligation for almost all Dutch books. The Fixed Book Price Act applies to works that:

• contain text in the Dutch and/or Frisian language

• are provided with a title

• consist of paper pages

• may or may not be accompanied by supporting information carriers

• are intended for sale to end-users.

Since 2005, it has been a legal requirement to charge a fixed selling price for books. The publisher (even if a book is self-published) determines the selling price, and stores are not allowed to compete with each other on this.

The Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) supervises compliance with the Fixed Book Price Act.

Why a fixed book price?

Without a fixed book price, there would be more competition for books. This could make many books cheaper, so you might think this only has advantages.

But there are also disadvantages. With a lower selling price, less remains for the author, (online) bookstore, and publisher. The author would have to sell many more books to make a living. The publishing house would then only publish books that sell a lot. And the bookstore would only want to sell the most popular books.

Ultimately, this would mean that a budding author would not get a chance to have a book published. Only books that everyone is sure in advance will be bestsellers would then be sold.

Books with or without a fixed book price.

The publishing house must register Dutch and Frisian language books with the Media Authority and state the selling price. In some cases, the publishing house can decide to waive the fixed book price. This is only allowed at least one year after the publication date. A change is only allowed after at least six months. In both cases, this can only be implemented after registration with the Media Authority.

There are also a number of exceptions, for example for special promotional campaigns.

Fixed book price at Kinderboekenland

We must, of course, also adhere to this legislation, and therefore, before we add a book to our assortment, we check whether it is listed in the register and whether the fixed book price applies.

• If the fixed book price has been increased, we are obliged to adjust the selling price in accordance with the Fixed Book Price Act.
• If the fixed book price has expired, we can (this is not mandatory) determine/lower the selling price ourselves.
• Finally, we also have products in our assortment that do not fall under the fixed book price because they do not meet the characteristics.