Killing Books
By reducing the discounts on many of their books, Amazon has raised their prices. Again. It's been a few years since they've done this (I think the last time was when they simply stopped discounting mass market paperbacks altoghether), and I'm not counting the mandatory Amazon Marketplace shipping price (from $2.99 to $3.49 to $3.99 in a little more than a year). This makes me sad for a number of reasons.
I realized a few weeks ago that I no longer really buy books, I scrounge them. I will not be coerced into buying the inch-taller, two-dollar more expensive "mass market" paperbacks. Rather than drop ten bucks per on these marketing monstrosities, I'll buy a used hardcover. Even with shipping I can more than likely get the book for less. Which is sad.
Yes this is an opinion but I just cannot believe the way to sell more books is to charge more for the same book in a different form factor. Or merely to charge more. I've blogged about this extensively so I'll cut myself off here, but geez, if it costs me fifty bucks for five fricking paperbacks, how many do you think I'll buy? Seriously.
Spot-checking Amazon shows that smaller presses' offerings are suffering the reduced discounts. Look, guys, I only have so much money to spend each month. You won't make more money from me this way, you won't generate more sales, you'll generate less. And you'll keep driving me to the used book market. Since I live in a small town about a hundred miles from the nearest Barnes & Noble or Borders, I'm quite cozy with the internet and buying used or new isn't any more difficult. Amazon needs to require booksellers in their Marketplace to state whether or not their books are publishers' or book club editions but that just makes me buy bestsellers from ABE or Alibris. (It seems that many Marketplace vendors buy up surplus book club editions and sell through Amazon.)
When I grew up, I would haunt the bookstores and spend the money in my pocket in books I thought would be good. This is how I discovered new authors. I can't afford to do that any more, nor have I for years. And I know I'm not unique. I still think that people who want to play video games or watch Matrix movies over and over are doing exactly what they want; readers will read, be it by patronizing libraries, used book stores, borrowing books, whatever. I just don't think competition from other leisure activities outweighs the sheer cost of reading new books. It is expensive, which inclines it toward an elitist activity, which further limits its scope.
It all just makes me wonder whether publishing is really in trouble or the fine art of reading books?
The other thing that occurred to me in the not too distant past tied all of this with e-books. While I still don't see readers choosing to supplant physical books with electronic ones (and deal with disk crashes, computer changes, O/S upgrades, DRM related issues, etc.), I could envision a scenario when publishers make books so unaffordable that they can then push a cheaper e-book price and basically force a reader to go there. But that's another nightmare.
I realized a few weeks ago that I no longer really buy books, I scrounge them. I will not be coerced into buying the inch-taller, two-dollar more expensive "mass market" paperbacks. Rather than drop ten bucks per on these marketing monstrosities, I'll buy a used hardcover. Even with shipping I can more than likely get the book for less. Which is sad.
Yes this is an opinion but I just cannot believe the way to sell more books is to charge more for the same book in a different form factor. Or merely to charge more. I've blogged about this extensively so I'll cut myself off here, but geez, if it costs me fifty bucks for five fricking paperbacks, how many do you think I'll buy? Seriously.
Spot-checking Amazon shows that smaller presses' offerings are suffering the reduced discounts. Look, guys, I only have so much money to spend each month. You won't make more money from me this way, you won't generate more sales, you'll generate less. And you'll keep driving me to the used book market. Since I live in a small town about a hundred miles from the nearest Barnes & Noble or Borders, I'm quite cozy with the internet and buying used or new isn't any more difficult. Amazon needs to require booksellers in their Marketplace to state whether or not their books are publishers' or book club editions but that just makes me buy bestsellers from ABE or Alibris. (It seems that many Marketplace vendors buy up surplus book club editions and sell through Amazon.)
When I grew up, I would haunt the bookstores and spend the money in my pocket in books I thought would be good. This is how I discovered new authors. I can't afford to do that any more, nor have I for years. And I know I'm not unique. I still think that people who want to play video games or watch Matrix movies over and over are doing exactly what they want; readers will read, be it by patronizing libraries, used book stores, borrowing books, whatever. I just don't think competition from other leisure activities outweighs the sheer cost of reading new books. It is expensive, which inclines it toward an elitist activity, which further limits its scope.
It all just makes me wonder whether publishing is really in trouble or the fine art of reading books?
The other thing that occurred to me in the not too distant past tied all of this with e-books. While I still don't see readers choosing to supplant physical books with electronic ones (and deal with disk crashes, computer changes, O/S upgrades, DRM related issues, etc.), I could envision a scenario when publishers make books so unaffordable that they can then push a cheaper e-book price and basically force a reader to go there. But that's another nightmare.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 6:00 PM
2 Comments:
I agree completely! A case in point: 2 months ago I wanted to get my hands on Hugo winner Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn (in Hardcover). Amazon.ca had it for about 29 CA$ !!
So I went ahead and bought it brand new (remaindered) through their Marketplace for about 12 CA$ shipping included! Ever since, I have been buying books from the same vendor left and right, with many of these books (brand new) costing me less than 10 CA$ with shipping!
Now I'll still buy new HC from Amazon when the price is right - between 16 and 20 CA$ - but that's it! For instance, I paid about 20 CA$ for the latest Neil Stephenson, Anathem, a 940-page hardcover! Now that's interesting! ;-)
As for Trade paperbacks and MMP, I still buy them directly from Amazon as shipping charges on Marketplace (6,49 CA$) make these editions less interesting, except when the book is out of print of course.
Very nice post, Rick!
Robert M.
Hey, Robert, so there are at least two of us! There is absolutely no way that high prices and an abundance of poor books (you can take that in a number of ways) haven't changed the purchasing habits of readers like you and I but I'm darned if I've come across any discussion on it. I've harped on a bunch of it here but even I'm growing tired of myself.
I'm worried about these things, about the potential self-fulfilling prophecy of eBooks-are-inevitable, and that so much power over printed knowledge is controlled by so few publishing companies.
To the people who say publishers should print sub-standard quality books (some do anyway) to dissolve the used book market, that say B&N and Borders are evil, that no one should buy from Amazon, I say: put yourselves in the hands of readers that used to be able to pick up paperbacks for pocket change and get a clue.
Apparently I still have some pent up juice that needs venting. I need to create some more posts. Thanks for writing, Robert.
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