The provincial government of Quebec is looking at a proposal that would prevent deep discounting of new books as a means of helping independent booksellers survive reports Publishers Weekly —

In Canadian publishing, all eyes are on Quebec. That’s because the province is debating whether to fix the price of books. The argument for fixing prices, many say, is to ensure that the city’s independent bookstores will still be standing at the end of the decade. A book industry coalition has been campaigning for a year now, hoping to implement a fixed book price policy for new releases that would disallow any reseller from slashing prices for at least a nine month period. During that initial nine months, resellers would be allowed to extend a maximum 10% discount.

[Thanks to John Mansfield for the story.]