Local booksellers say price war is shortsighted
As the online book war continued today, local independent booksellers said it shouldn’t affect their profits much - but it’s not good for publishing overall.
Nikki Furrer of Pudd’nhead Books in Webster Groves said in an email:
”I know that price wars over books bring on the inevitable ‘oh no, the indies will die!’ chorus, but the fact is independent bookstores aren’t in danger from this. These aren’t really our top-selling books, and our customers are looking for more than just saving a few dollars.”
“It will affect us because it may drive people to the websites and web buying is big competition for us out here. I feel that if we can get people in the store, we can sell them books. If they are sitting at home shopping via computer, we don’t have that opportunity. It also makes our prices seem grasping and greedy because we can’t afford to discount that much (or at all) and yet customers don’t seem to understand that we have costs associated with selling the books.”
Kelly von Plonski, owner of Subterranean Books in University City, said the price war “won’t affect my business one jot. The only title we’re even stocking is the Barbara Kingsolver.”
The New York Times noted Tuesday that Target had entered the fray with Wal-Mart and Amazon in discounting several upcoming books by popular authors. The online price cuts have been going down penny by penny after Amazon and Wal-Mart cut several novels’ price to $9. (The regular retail price would be $24 and up, although Wal-Mart and Amazon would have discounted that):
On Monday, Target began offering customers who pre-ordered six soon-to-be published books on its Web site the same $8.99 price that Wal-Mart has been offering on its Web site since Friday. By Tuesday, Wal-Mart had lowered the price of the books, which include Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” and “Ford County,” a short story collection by John Grisham, to $8.98.
The other affected books are “I, Alex Cross” by James Patterson; “Pirate Latitudes” by the late Michael Crichton; “The Lacuna” by Barbara Kingsolver; and “Ice” by Linda Howard. Wal-Mart had discounted four other pre-order titles, including Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue,” and “Breathless” by Dean Koontz, to $8.99 on Friday. ….
Last week, David Steinberger, chief executive of Perseus Books Group, told the Wall Street Journal the price wars will help sales in the short run but create problems if they continue. “When your product is treated as a loss leader, it lowers its perceived value,” he said. “If you are taking margin out of the supply chain, it will eventually put pressure on everyone in that chain. It’s not great, certainly not for publishers.”
At Left Bank Books in the Central West End, co-owner Jarek Steele e-mailed:
The “price war” is not a new story to bookselling. Members of the American Booksellers Association (including Left Bank Books) sued and won a case against major publishers for offering deeper discounts to monster chain stores than they offered independent stores. Since then, retailers like Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart have found different ways to undercut the retail price below the point where real stores can manage. But it’s only because the big guys are really only one-trick ponies. Price chopping is the way
they compete with real bookstores.The problem with treating books as “product” and not literature is that the craftsmanship is undervalued. Soon the craftsmen (and women) and their craft are undervalued right off of your bookshelves (or e-readers).
Furrer echoed some of what Steele wrote:
“It’s the chain bookstores and the readers that are going to be hurt by this the most. Chain bookstores can’t do what what independents can do, not can they pay their bills by selling toothpaste and electronics. Readers will suffer the most, however. If the general public learns to expect cheap books, publishers won’t be able to afford to take a chance on new writers, so quality, story, research and expertise will slowly disappear from new books, and we’ll only have those most commercial and bland books to choose from. Again, you get what you pay for.”
Meanwhile, Stephen King told the Times that he remembered the gas wars of the 1970s, which began and ended “mysteriously”:
“Does that story really have anything to do with the current price war over books, and the ramifications into the e-book business, which may have been the actual igniting factor? I don’t know, but it was fun telling the story.”
Furrer noted: “I’m pre-selling the new Stephen King book too, and instead of selling it cheap, I’m letting customers read my early copy now, instead of November when the book comes out. My customers pay what the book is worth, but they get real customer service in return. And in the end, you get what you pay for.”
What’s cheaper than even these rock bottom book prices? Used books. I am a “frequent flier” at alibris.com, a portal for used bookstores all over the country. I love seeing what I can find for $1.99 — this includes even textbooks for my kids. This fall I saved over 60% on the cost of my son’s high school textbooks. But, there are many, many books to be found other than textbooks: fiction, non-fiction, how-to’s, craft books, even movies. They also have great coupons, once you start ordering. If I’m not buying from one of the local independent bookshops, I’m saving a book from the trash heap by purchasing one used.
I use paperbackswap.com pretty much weekly, I pop into flea markets, and I frequent the local book store (if not for books, just for the conversation). I am a total bookworm and I am amazed how many others are like me in my office. Enough of us, in fact, that we instituted a “book shelf” in our break room and whatever a person places on the shelf, another picks up and it may never come back to the shelf. One way to swap out your books (unless you are a collector of series like me).
including Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue”
Considering that this will be lining bird cages and/or being utilized as toilet paper shortly after it comes out, $9 still seems steep for trash like this.
These booksellers should create a body that will regulate a general pricing. I mean this will also protect the companies against piracy.
Regards,
http://www.goldcoinsgain.com
I use the STL library.
In the end, the “real” bookstore is just another retail outlet. If people want all the expertise of the “booksellers” (I assume the “real” stores believe they provide additional value as sellers of “literature”) consumers will pay their prices. They have every right to compete…and by the way so do Walmart, the chain bookstores, and Amazon.
Most of what was written a hundred years ago is just as good reading as what is written today - and you can get it free @ gutenberg.org, or formatted for your Sony Reader at manybooks.net. In addition to the oldies, manybooks.net also has new works from undiscovered authors - some are junk, others are great reading.
Ultimately, the old model of publishing - a handful of commercial gatekeepers deciding what we all get to read, high book prices, and dead trees - is going away. Books will all be published electronically, there will be no gatekeepers at all - and there won’t be any $25 books either.
We all love free or cheap things. But a couple of classic truisms come to mind:
“You get what you pay for” and “There’s no free lunch.”
Nick, there are more publishers than ever before. Also more authors and less “gatekeeping.” Anyone who wants to publish a book can do it for about $500. If he doesn’t want to kill trees, he can post his novel to the internet for free right now.
But serious, quality writers still need to pay living expenses. How is that going to happen in book utopia? Some writers can hold down real jobs (teaching or whatever) while writing as a sideline. But that applies to a limited number of people. Plus, it doesn’t allow the really popular writers to turn out books at a pace that fans expect.
All of the above freebies depend on someone else paying for them somehow. Great books aren’t usually written and acquired by libraries or left on coffee shop tables by magic. The magic hand of capitalism is still involved in all of the above enterprises.
Is there a realistic new business model that allows a cheap book utopia? I haven’t seen one.
Jane,
One recent analysis (link below) provided this breakdown of the cost of a book:
Author royalties - 8-15%
Publisher - 45-55% (only 10% is printing)
Distributor - 10%
Retailer - 40%
So on a $20 book, the author is getting between $1.50 and $3. That’s not free, but it’s close enough for most of us. So the question is, what value is being added by those other than the author, and are there good substitutes which can replace them?
The publisher’s chief purpose is to serve as gatekeeper. Basically, their job is to keep us from wasting our money purchasing lousy books. Considering the number of aspiring authors, this is a huge job. But in the online world, reader reviews accomplish the same purpose. And more importantly, you can give away the first chapter, which will enable most readers to decide whether a particular book suits them.
The distributor, currently taking $2 a book, is replaced by a website. Or more precisely, by many websites. The cost of the site itself is close to nothing, as demonstrated by many non-profit websites which provide excellent content. In fact, if a smart newspaper wanted to draw a substantial national audience to its website, providing an electronic marketplace for unpublished books would be a great way to do it.
The retailer, at $8 a book, provides a variety of services. Independent booksellers make much of the guidance provided by their skilled staff, and there is something to that. But affinity groups and blogs serve the same purpose online, as do local reading clubs and other literary social networks. And of course, the brick and mortar costs of providing physical books vanish with electronic publishing.
This doesn’t mean that some particular components of the current publishing model won’t persist, only that they will be provided in a different way. For example, I recently read “Surviving the Fog” by Stan Morris. It was a very good book, which would have been made better by a proofreader. In the post-publisher world, Mr. Morris might be selling his book for a couple of bucks, and it may have been proofread by a freelancer for several hundred dollars. Similarly, established authors might bring in research assistants, publicists, or even ghostwriters, to assist in the making and distribution of their books. These costs might bring the price of a book by a popular author up to as much as $5 a copy.
There are only two things which stand in the way of what you call cheap book utopia: technology, and a book industry with a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. While I love my Sony Reader, we are still several years away from having personal readers which are of the price and quality to be widely accepted. When that happens, the publishing industry won’t be able to stop the change.
A good analogy for what will happen in publishing is what has already happened in the music industry. You can purchase an mp3 of a popular tune online for less than a dollar. And you can download music by undiscovered artists for free. Popular musicians are still making money, though perhaps not at the level of The Beatles or Michael Jackson. And as has been the case since man first rhythmically banged two coconuts together, there are millions of others who are passionate about their music, who play in bar bands, pass out MP3s on the internet, hand out CDs at subway stations, and work a “real job” to pay the bills.
Finally, I must say that in the phrase “cheap book utopia” the word which should be emphasized is utopia, not cheap. Yes, the price of obtaining a book will dramatically decrease. But the more important thing is, our choices will be limited by the collective creativity of all mankind, not by the ability of a few hundred gatekeepers to sift through a bottomless stack of book proposals. So long as effective tools exist to separate the wheat from the chaff, that would be utopia indeed.
http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/03/book-cost-analysis-cost-of-physical-book-publishing/
Nick,
You include lots of good information and points.
But that model is already available - and how many good and/or well-known authors are using it profitably?
New technology provides both pluses and minuses. One of the big minuses is that the expanding universe of data makes it harder to be heard. So although there are new opportunities - videos, social networking, etc. - there is more competition too. Some may think that requires even MORE auxillary people to make a book truly profitable. In addition to traditional editors, designers, etc., you might also need additional people - people paid $25 per ‘review’ posted on websites, for instance. Stay-at-home moms who are offered free books to blog about - for free (except it still costs someone time and money to get the books to the reviewers).
Some forecasters say the future of the book industry will be less like music and more like movies, with many forms or ways in which to enjoy the original creation.