are bookstore chains eating themselves?

[RimWorlder]

That's the basic question.

The other day I was in Borders, which is hooked up through the Amazon network.

I know the internet has opened book purchasing opportunities, and Amazon is doing all kinds of wonderful things; this has been, to one degree or another, at the expense of ye olde corner bookshop. But now I'm wondering how long chains like Borders will be around.

I received a gift card. I went online and searched for some titles, and found that most, if not all, were available both new and used. I've ordered used titles through Amazon before (sometimes its the only way to pick up a particular title) and have been very happy. Most of my purchases looked brand new, and the ones that didn't were only lightly read.

Since I was going to be near a physical Borders, I put off ordering until I could check out some titles in person. I like reading blurbs, looking at the cover and maybe reading a page or two before I buy - a feature increasingly available online.

I didn't find a single title on the shelves that I hadn't seen available as used online, and considering that I could stretch that gift card to cover as many as 20 'used' books, I ended up leaving the store without making a single purchase. Now I'm getting ready to purchase used books online - a method that provides no royalties to the authors and no sale to the publisher.

This strikes me as being cannabilistic and, considering how rapidly books are turned over these days and the sales methods used: new releases are often discounted at the beginning to spur initial sales and titles are often gone in three months - with remainders going right to the used market.

I don't feel good about this, but my 'need to read' outweighs my social responsibility to support authors through royalties, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position.

One title I was looking for was Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. In the store - trade paperback - $12.95. On Amazon, available through Borders - $1.25 + shipping. This is a perfect example, since I was disinclined to give this particular author her royalty, given her rejection of 'science fiction' with all those martians in there...I'd have spent traditional paperback fees for it - but I'm not going to be forced into purchasing a trade paperback.

 

[catsrule1]

Rim, if I am not mistaken, in the UK it is "forbidden/illegal" to resell books on the secondary market to protect copyright holders. That obviously is not taken seriously, and there is a thriving market for used books in the UK. (I would welcome anyone from the UK clarifying the law there for me - maybe this was only years ago.) I think most writers (as well as musicians) are resigned to the fact that there is a market for sales of used (recycled) works of theirs for which they will not receive royalties. Since it is a fact of life, it is useless for them to waste time and emotional energy resenting the resale idea, IMHO. I doubt the majority would resent it anyway, since they also buy used books.

 

[Fung Koo]

This phenomenon certainly isn't limited to book stores, but it's a particularly good example. I try my hardest to boycott Amazon, Walmart, Futureshop/Best Buy... big box stores in general. The grand irony is that at the moment I work in a firm that supports these and many other multinational corporations -- which are systematically destroying the world as we know it as far as I can tell. In some ways, it's positive. But it really reveals the fact that the entire earth, once a fully globalized market, is a closed economic system with an unsupportable interest rate. The first world bourgeois versus the second and third world proles, I guess.

The movement toward the mega-version of everything can only end in economic disaster, methinks. And chief amongst the casualties is the arts industry. I'm normally not much of a doomsayer in this regard, cuz I think the system always finds a way to self correct, but the entire idea of the arts-as-commodity has changed dramatically. Even in my life time compared to the venerable RimWolder's.

But I'm with you, Rim. I don't know what to do either. It makes me really uncomfortable. I can't really afford all the new books, and I wrestle with buying the new ones because I hate to support the mega-corps, but at least the author gets credited for one more unit sold, and I hate buying the used ones too because it feels like stealing.

But when a mega-corp sells used materials, it's really doubling it's profits off of selling the same item twice, only this time without acquisition costs. And then eBay goes and posts record profits off of someone else's labour.

Capitalism is a bitch, man. I hate being complicit.

 

[RimWorlder]

Couple of things:

Its my personal interpretation of the copyright law/licensing agreements that its illegal to sell used books in the US as well - this despite a huge, thriving market. The fact that used books are sold everywhere without consequence is the result of a collision between reality and theoretical law: the only alternative to selling a used book (other than giving it away) is trashing it. Its also impossible to police and, if a product is legal to begin with, its very difficult to restrict its resale because trying to do so ends up meaning 'its your property but you don't control it'.

Same deal with software licenses; non-transferable, single-use only, right there in the licensing agreement. But you're allowed to sell your PC with the software on it. Legal - well, at the least it violates the non-transferable portion of the agreement you signed. Does it happen all the time? Yes. Are there software licensing police on every figurative corner? No.

Second; the sheer economic stupidity just blows me away: they start off by playing the 'you must discount it to us because of our volume'. Then they re-sell with a 'lower-than-everyone-else price to grab marketshare. Then they impose shelf-life times that are virtually non-existent, then they remainder the product (or return it for a full refund). So, they've engineered a situation in which they themselves are initially devaluing the product, give it no time to find its market and further devalue it when they dump.

I can only think of one circumstance in which this makes long-term sense, and that is in a marketplace that they themselves believe only has a limited, relatively short, lifetime. This comes under the heading of, 'better get it while its hot, cause after that it will be gone'.

Walmart does the same to their suppliers; the manufacturer is initially overwhelmed with the volume orders (you'll make more on volume, your machines will have no down time, etc., its steady cash flow); then Walmart squeezes them on price (gotta lower costs another 7 percent) until the supplier is only servicing Walmart to keep their machines running and the hopes that sales elsewhere will bring in some profit (hey - look at all the exposure we get at walmart!) - until ultimately they're LOSING money by selling to W-M; when the next squeeze on cost comes, they say 'can't do it' and W-M's response is - no problem, we've got twelve other manufacturers who are dying to fill your slot.

Ultimately, W-M has demonstrated that there's good money to be had in retail from putting your suppliers out of business.

 

[suciul]

Couple of things:

Its my personal interpretation of the copyright law/licensing agreements that its illegal to sell used books in the US as well - this despite a huge, thriving market. T

That's simply NOT TRUE; the doctrine of first sale has been affirmed in law in the case of books, cd's and related stuff in numerous court decisions. Do some research before posting false inflammatory comments.

For example you can start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale

 

[RimWorlder]

I think you ought to re-read exactly what I wrote before you accuse me of being inflammatory.

The phrase "personal interpretation" is right there at the beginning.

 

[Colonel Worf]

Inflammatory = Arousing passion or strong emotion, especially anger, belligerence, or desire.

I doubt anyone got all fired up about that personal opinion.

 

[DailyAlice]

The chains chased out the independents and now the net has the chains on the ropes. Borders Group at least is in big trouble; I've seen mention of a B&N buyout. Thus our book-buying future would be in the hands of a single superconglomerate. Nasty.

I don't pretend to understand the economic scene, but the vibes are bad. Remember when the hippies were claiming that small is beautiful? Where are they now? Probably rich.

 

[suciul]

I think you ought to re-read exactly what I wrote before you accuse me of being inflammatory.

The phrase "personal interpretation" is right there at the beginning.

The problem with "personal interpretation" is that it flies in front of 100 years of established law here in the US and just a tiny wee bit of research before accusing countless firms and people of breaking the law, seems to me warranted...

I apologize for the "inflammatory" bit, since it seems to me that carelessness rather than trolling was the motif here, but this is a very sensitive topic these days with all this double-speak from the media companies.

Regarding the original topic, I do not see the online retailers/used books sellers that dominating - I forgot the exact numbers but their market share as opposed to the big chains like B&N and Borders is still low - Amazon was at 7% at some point, though it may be higher...

The problems the big-chains, especially Borders had recently are due to a wrong bet on music cd's rather than books. There - in music cd's - the curtain is coming down and expanding your operations in that area like Borders did leads to big losses...

 

[Fung Koo]

Suciul -- it may not have been an accurate statement, but in the spirit of copyright law and intellectual property, the debate has come back up as to the legality -- or the morality, even -- of resale without compensation. So as a personal interpretation, it's actually quite a valid point.

I'm not trying to be inflammatory (well, maybe a little heheh) but I think Rim's post has more to do with the ideal than with the established legal history -- the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. Ideally we'd all like to see authors make money, and I think we all like the idea of publishers being the great sifters of crap to find those nuggets of gold, but the remuneration idea is being lost in the global corporate legal framework of bigbox megastores. This same debate raged on about art in the face of mass production back in the early industrial era. Our current laws have been shaped by the debate of that time and are beginning to seem outdated in the face of yet another new technology. Mass production is being replaced with infinite and borderless production. Furthermore, manufacturers are shying away from the retail model altogether with the advent of online shopping and courier shipping, which is yet another layer to this issue.

I'd also add eBooks to Rim's original post. There's a twisting in my guts about those, too. And as for their legality, it's much the same issue DCM in music, and that's nowhere near being worked out.

This is a big topic indeed. But I agree -- keeping the letter of the law in mind is a good idea to keep the conversation grounded.

 

[suciul]

Suciul -- it may not have been an accurate statement, but in the spirit of copyright law and intellectual property, the debate has come back up as to the legality -- or the morality, even -- of resale without compensation. So as a personal interpretation, it's actually quite a valid point.

The problem is that right now the publishers, studios and so on are trying to overturn established practices and make a big power grab - using paid for members of congress to extend copyrights for ever, trying to overturn the first sale doctrine and so on...

If you are happy with ever increasing copyright violations, file sharing and so on then by all means support this power grab, since that's where it is leading.

 

[Erfael]

If you are happy with ever increasing copyright violations, file sharing and so on then by all means support this power grab, since that's where it is leading.

suciul,

Would you state this differently? I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying here.

 

[suciul]

suciul,

Would you state this differently? I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying here.

There is a year 1923 I think - something to do with Disney, which every current year when the works from that year should enter public domain, they are extended for a little bit more - so copyright perpetuity de facto

Then there is the contention - sometimes whispered, sometimes affirmed loudly though retracted temporarily when people and the press howl - that if you buy a cd, but if you want those songs on your iPod, you should pay again

And so on - I can bring you numerous examples - lawsuits against used cd sellers, re importers of books... - but the bottom line is that using their lobbying power the music studios, publishers, movie studios are making a blatant power grab towards indefinite length copyright, pay every time you play - think of this you buy a book, you read from it today, tomorrow, whenever - what about if you have to pay every time you read??

Of course this leads to massive civil disobedience which takes form of file sharing/posting anywhere from YouTube to p2p's...

There is an essay by R. Stallman detailing the logic of this power grab if people do not fight it, I will see if I get a link fast.

Here:

The Right to Read

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00002854/01/right-to-read.html


Among other things the doctrine of first sale is one of the pillars of legal resistance, and it's really annoying when maybe well intentioned people dismiss it...

 

[psikeyhackr]

How much do authors make per book when they do get royalties?

So how could authors sell direct? Boards like this one could replace advertising done by publishers and book stores.

What does a book really cost to the reader? The true cost is the time it takes to read. 5 hours to read a book could amount to $25. So why not send the author $0.50 even if you reread an old book electronically. How much better is that than spending $8.00 on a book that doesn't pass the 50 page test? You don't find out it fails the test until after you bought it. Why print books anymore?

It is kind of like the author PLANTS AN OB on you.

http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm

It will take many more years to remake the book culture into an electronic info culture.

psik

 

[cgw]

I understand waht suciul is saying and I understand publishers or whoever is trying (maybe successfully) to extend copyright dates. But, suciul, do you have any actual information that there is any other legislation under consideration to change the " first sale doctrine "?

 

[ArthurFrayn]

There is a year 1923 I think - something to do with Disney, which every current year when the works from that year should enter public domain, they are extended for a little bit more - so copyright perpetuity de facto

Then there is the contention - sometimes whispered, sometimes affirmed loudly though retracted temporarily when people and the press howl - that if you buy a cd, but if you want those songs on your iPod, you should pay again
...Of course this leads to massive civil disobedience which takes form of file sharing/posting anywhere from YouTube to p2p's...

The unnerving thing is, that for people who think Fahrenheit 451 has at it's heart an absurd premise, this regulating of reading in defense of people's copyrights as described above, is eerily the perfect means by which, we could arrive at a society of restricted reading, where books should be destroyed because they infringe on copyrights, and cannot be monitored like their electronic counterparts. Rights and freedoms are always compromised intially for supposedly legitimate reasons.

 

[Fung Koo]

... which is you should always buy your "gardening supplies" with cash

 

[RimWorlder]

How much do authors make per book when they do get royalties?

So how could authors sell direct? Boards like this one could replace advertising done by publishers and book stores.

What does a book really cost to the reader? The true cost is the time it takes to read. 5 hours to read a book could amount to $25. So why not send the author $0.50 even if you reread an old book electronically. How much better is that than spending $8.00 on a book that doesn't pass the 50 page test? You don't find out it fails the test until after you bought it. Why print books anymore?

It is kind of like the author PLANTS AN OB on you.

http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm

It will take many more years to remake the book culture into an electronic info culture.

psik

"Nunya"

There are two issues here. 1 is - how do writers reach their market in an electronic era. 2 is - do we really want them going directly, or should there be some vetting process (editorial) first? I say 'yes' to number 2, because there is the danger of everyone being flooded with so much to read that A. quality is diluted by quantity and B. there's so much on the market that it becomes worthless as a commodity and no one can earn a living by writing.

Admittedly all of the above will take many years and many changes to surface, if it happens.

As for how they reach their market - this is an issue I'm heavily involved with right now. The indie music model doesn't really work for text and I have concerns about most writers being able to spend the necessary time for self-promotion that 'putting it out there for free' would involve.

Average 'advance' against royalties in the SFF world is about 5k. average royalty is 8 percent (of retail) - so, something like 50 cents to a dollar per copy.

CGW - one example you are looking for is the RIAA's attempt to throttle the transfer of CDs to MP3, arguing that the file format change constitutes a new media (equivalent to having the book and demanding the movie version for free).

 

[Fung Koo]

The indie music model doesn't really work for text and I have concerns about most writers being able to spend the necessary time for self-promotion that 'putting it out there for free' would involve.

I'm thinking that sites like this one, which encourages members to write -- it's not a big stretch to imagine a peer review process that takes etexts and "publishes" them. Other arts sites like deviant, or even myspace, have produced people that have been picked up by the traditional publishers. The main difficulties, of course, are the whole "not previously published elsewhere" issue and the purchasing of rights, etc.

Anyway, my only real point is that there is some merit to the current indie music model, if applied to lit. It's by no means perfect, but some of the ideas transfer well. Books are just such a strangely physically-bound media...

the RIAA's attempt to throttle the transfer of CDs to MP3, arguing that the file format change constitutes a new media (equivalent to having the book and demanding the movie version for free).

Is that really the argument they made? Movie versions are rarely faithful reproductions. And 50 different directors would make 50 different movies based on one source text... That's the silliest argument I've ever heard! What a bunch of nincompoops that RIAA is...

 

[RimWorlder]

FK,

the music model is better applied to shorts and flash fiction than it is to longer lengths; its realtively easy to spend three minutes to decide if you like something as opposed to several hours/days. You could order the 'sampler' from the writer, decide you like it, pay for the whole thing and get gibberish.

Peer review outside of a concret, scientific circle, is problematic. For a technical paper, peers are supposed to be looking at factual, objective information; they can point to a statistical flaw in a survey or introduce additional facts that support or knock down the argument. When it comes to fiction, peers will be arguing about subjective information (beyond spelling, grammar); such a system could easily turn into a bitchfest and could do as much harm to an author as good. We're even beginning to see the start of what I refer to as 'throttling' the communication pipeline. If you (the author) can cozy up to those who control the media, you'll be the greatest thing since sliced bread - regardless of quality or originality. If they don't like you, for whatever reason, you will literally not exist, because, yes, you can set up your own website and post your youtube flicks and open up a myspace page and add everyone as a friend, but the web is NOT really a wonderful, egalitarian level playing field. Traffic is the equivalent of potential market share and there are sites that dominate that traffic and have the power to steal or curtail traffic to alternatives. If sites seen by millions say your stuff is crap, how much success are you going to have with your site that sees hundreds - even if your stuff IS better than sliced bread? Their size/influence automatically confers the right to decide what is 'good' and what isn't.

That net dominance bleeds over into the real world; people talk. popular sites attract 'movers and shakers' with their own sets of influences. So, in the long run, you end up playing the same game - trying to figure out what the big boys are looking for in order to sell your stuff, cowtowing to their sensibilities and curtailing opinions that contradict their own in order to get along.