How happy are you with all those online book bargains?

But there are consequences to being cheap, as we see in this NYT article:

http://snurl.com/96xmn-xray

Malcolm

Interesting how they look to first blame the second hand market but remind us that before that Amazon was the one the industry tried to blame. Could it be something else? A combination of factors?

I imagine there are a lot of resellers selling Stephen King and Dean Koontz cheap... there are a lot of their books out there. But what about the titles that aren't available from resellers? They are suffering too. Who or what is to blame for that?

As I said it's a lot of things, the cost of books, the growth of poverty, TV, gaming, the ending of a golden age. Take your pick which one it is. Me I'll blame it on all of them and even more I can't think of just now.

I think about any title would be available from re-sellers. I got a smirking email from my legendarily miserly partner this morning, giggling over having bought a $47 textbook for his rather obscure college course, on eBay for $3.75

Here's the thing. You can't blame stuff like this on consumers. The customer is always right. If their buying habits don't please a producer or seller, they need to figure out how to deal with it.

People buy cheap stuff from evil communist slave-labor Chinese outfits, too. Weakening the American economy. Tool and toy manufacturors come to grips with it.

US car manufacturors have been undercut by imports for years (not to mention the second-hand market). Most people tend to see that as a failure of Detroit, not consumers.

Maybe publishers and book stores need to (or should have) embraced the model of car sellers: incorporate used sales into their own retail aparatus.

BTW, does it make any sense that a textbook should cost $47?

There are a ton of factors. Overproduction and the fact that the book industry is worse than the auto industry at obsoleting the current product with new technology.

Music was dragged kicking into the digital age with CDs and then downloadable files. The vinyl record was obsolete. Books are pretty much the same product now as 100 years ago and an old book reads the same as a new one.

I have to agree with Lin on this. Will the publishers adapt? Will there be a return of the Mom & Pop bookstores that had only a few hundred in stock but could order anything? Apparently big isn't better when Borders and B&N are closing stores. Even used bookstores can't survive if no one is producing new books.

As for online shopping in general, I'm still teed off that I paid $149 for a gift that the seller reduced to $99 two days later.

Amazon wants a bigger share of the publishing world. Allowing resellers to push bargain books hurts authors and publishers and, of course, weakens both. Time for Amazon to swoop in ad grab more of the market?

Hmmm, I wonder.

Malcolm

Here's a ridiculous twist to the whole thing: Nine years ago I did a book on the history of high school football in Akron. Obviously there was a very limited market. One of the high schools did the printing and any profit went to all the high schools in the city.
A few months ago I ran it through Lulu. The result is much nicer in every respect. The original sold for $20, the Lulu version for $24.95. Now re-sellers claim to have four copies available for $26, although I feel certain that is not true unless they mean the original version. Another one is trying to sell a copy of the original for the ridiculous price of $80.
I no longer have faith in much of anything I see for sale on the Internet.

Go with the flow is the creed of most. Swimming upstream against a strong current doesn't work too well.

In the end, it is the buyer that dictates what will be bought/sold. Cheap happens to be part of the flow just now. Who wants to buck the current?

Amazon has my book listed with resellers from 10.60 new and under 3.00 used. New price from amazon is 16.95. This is a problem. I don't drive traffic to amazon to sell a used copy of my book. Those new books for 10.60, I have no clue.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

The original sold for $20, the Lulu version for $24.95. Now re-sellers claim to have four copies available for $26, although I feel certain that is not true unless they mean the original version. Another one is trying to sell a copy of the original for the ridiculous price of $80.
I no longer have faith in much of anything I see for sale on the Internet.

My Utamaro book is on Amazon UK for £22.48 new. For about two months there were a couple of marketplace sellers selling it for over £40, and the last time I looked there was a used copy for £38. Who on earth would buy the book at those prices?

I just checked Amazon for my 'Mother's Journals ...' and they list the price from $29.03 all the way to $51.99! Those are all supposedly new, and the used copies run from $34.09 to $34.19 in used, like new condition. PA has it listed at $29.95 retail and 'your price $24.95'. I guess it reflects the suggested retail and a bonus lower price for buying through them.

It really does seem an unrealistic price for a paperback, although it is a high quality one.

When the seller goes out and buys a copy wholesale from Ingram after a customer places an order, at least the publisher and author are making money on the deal.

It's the used ones that hurt, especially when other authors tell me "I bought your book," then note that they got a great deal on it used. Thanks for nothing.

Malcolm

I only buy used books if they're out of print. If the book's in print then I buy it new, and I've always done that.

You're a good person, Gina.

Well, bless your heart Gina.

You may be supporting all the rest of us. :-)