The bill protects the counter

A cultural law should not confuse diversity with a protected counter.

The draft fixed book price bill has one involuntary virtue: once you read it closely, it shows rather clearly what it wants to protect.

Not necessarily reading.

Not necessarily bibliodiversity.

Not necessarily authors, small publishers, readers outside the capital, used books, libraries or backlist catalogues.

It protects, above all, a way of selling books.

That difference matters.

For weeks, fixed pricing has been presented as a defense of small bookstores against banks, platforms, aggressive discounts and bigger players. The problem is real. Independent bookstores have less financial muscle, worse commercial conditions, smaller logistical scale and less ability to absorb promotions. Anyone who knows a small bookstore knows that.

But recognizing the problem does not oblige us to accept any solution.

The document circulated by the Uruguayan Book Chamber proposes that every publisher, importer or representative set a uniform retail price. Discounts would be capped at 10 percent. Larger discounts would only be allowed after eighteen months. The enforcement authority could inspect, fine and even close establishments.¹

Up to that point, this is a fixed price law. Debatable, but recognizable.

The revealing problem comes later.

Article 5 allows remainder sales after those eighteen months, but adds that those books may not be sold through websites or large sales platforms.

That is where part of the discourse falls apart.

Because that sentence no longer regulates only price. It regulates the channel. It does not merely say: do not dump new releases. It says something stronger: even when the initial protection period has expired, even when a remainder sale is allowed, that sale cannot circulate through certain media.

Who does that protect?

Not the reader outside Montevideo, who often reaches books online because there is no nearby bookstore with enough backlist.

Not the small bookstore that uses a website, Instagram, Mercado Libre or any platform to survive outside street traffic.

Not slow-moving catalogues, which need more channels, not fewer.

Not bibliodiversity, if by bibliodiversity we mean more different books finding more possible readers.

It protects the physical counter against the digital channel.

And that is the uncomfortable point in the whole debate.

Bibliodiversity is invoked, but often what is being defended is a type of shop that sells the same frontlist catalogue as everyone else. If several bookstores offer the same new releases, the same bestsellers, the same seasonal tables and the same dominant publishers, fixed pricing does not create diversity by itself. It merely administers the same catalogue at a uniform price.

A cultural policy should ask something else: which books do not arrive, which publishers do not circulate, which authors are left outside, which readers cannot pay, which libraries cannot buy, which bookstores outside the capital lack reasonable conditions, what happens to used books, to backlist, to direct sales, to reading clubs, to public purchasing and to shared digital tools.

None of that is guaranteed by fixing prices.

The bill mixes real problems, but answers them with a general restriction. If the problem is bank promotions, discuss non-discriminatory conditions so that a small bookstore can participate without losing money. If the problem is platform opacity, discuss seller identification, invoicing, guarantees, traceability and clear rules. If the problem is informality, inspect informality. If the problem is concentration, look at wholesale terms, distribution, logistics, advertising, payment systems and access to stock.

But turning all of that into a uniform price for new books is another thing.

It is a transfer.

If a reader who today buys with a 20 or 25 percent discount can only buy with 10 percent tomorrow, the cost appears in that reader’s pocket. Some may believe that cost is justified to sustain bookstores. Fine. Say it openly. Explain what society receives in return. Show how the result will be measured.

What does not work is presenting the transfer as an automatic defense of culture.

The text also leaves one decisive point untouched: the power of publishers, importers and representatives. They would set the retail price. But the bill does not regulate wholesale conditions, margins, availability, exclusivities, discriminatory treatment or access to catalogues for small bookstores. It assumes that stabilizing the retail price will order the whole chain. That assumption is too convenient.

A small bookstore may end up forced to sell at the same price as a large player without receiving better purchasing conditions, paying lower commissions, solving logistics, carrying more stock, accessing promotions or gaining new readers.

Fixed pricing can protect margin.

It does not necessarily correct asymmetries.

There are also legislative drafting problems. The draft repeats an article heading, leaves a parenthetical “original text” inside the operative text, uses vague categories and leaves sensitive sanctions, including closure, to later regulation. It also counts the eighteen months from each edition or importation, which may make the protected period very elastic for imported books that are replenished periodically.

These are not minor details.

A law that fixes prices and sanctions businesses needs precision. Otherwise it opens gray zones: what counts as a massive platform, what happens with a bookstore’s own website, what is the difference between Instagram sales and marketplace sales, how is noncompliance proven, who inspects, how much discretion does the authority have, how is a fine scaled, when is closure possible and with what guarantees.

In the name of books, it is not a good idea to write bad laws.

Fixed pricing can be discussed. It should not be taboo. Some countries apply it, with different histories, scales, institutions and markets. There are also studies that defend it. But importing a restriction is not the same as building a book policy.

A book policy should commit itself to verifiable results: more reading, more access, more available backlist, more territorial circulation, smarter public purchasing, more libraries, more Uruguayan authors read, more visible small publishers, more shared digital tools, more conditions for a bookstore to be something other than a cash register with shelves.

If the aim is to rescue bookstores, say so.

If the cost is paid by readers who lose discounts, say so.

If the aim is to favor the physical shop over digital sales, say so.

If the State will control prices and sanction businesses, say so.

What does not follow is calling every mechanism that keeps a counter open bibliodiversity.

Bibliodiversity is not the same shelf in another address. It is more catalogue, more circulation, more editorial risk, more access, more readers, more paths between books and people.

A book law should start there.

Not by making access effectively more expensive and then trusting diversity to appear by itself.