CBA has called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate what it calls predatory pricing practices by Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Target in the pre-release of hardcover books as well as the sales and pricing of e-books.

The request seeks to stop monopolization of the publishing industry through predatory pricing, which would limit the sale of existing books to only a few retailers. Such practices will damage the entire publishing industry by promoting an unsustainable economic model, CBA said. Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com embarked on an online price war this fall over the pre-sales of new hardcover, best-selling books.

"The predatory pricing of Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart threatens the entire publishing industry," Rick Christian, president of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based literary agency Alive Communications, was quoted in CBA's Dec. 1 letter to the DOJ. "These retailers can sell hyper-reduced books as 'loss leaders' for a time, but it's an unsustainable model that, without intervention, will shutter hundreds of book stores, force many publishers out of business, gut trade associations and significantly reduce the number of self-sustaining authors."

Christian added that such practices eventually will limit titles available to consumers and raise prices. "It's a scenario in which everybody loses in the long run, unless decisive action is taken immediately," he said.

Alive Communications has represented popular titles and authors such as the "Left Behind" series (more than 64 million copies sold), The Message Bible (10 million) and Karen Kingsbury's novels (15 million).

Click here to view the CBA letter.

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