Books, cost

[Guest guest]

All,

 

I will be traveling for a couple of weeks and will be checking email only

sporadically. This should finish my post on books before I go.

 

First, my apology, I was having fun tweaking the on-line giants, but stepped

over

the line in offering something for sale. My apology; this created an

unnecessary

burden on who should not need to rein-in merchants, and is an

inappropriate precedent. We had just wasted hours and hours on the phone

with a major on-line seller who had listed one of the older taiji books as ``out

of

print'' when it was not. The chains and other on-line discounters accepted the

misinformation and the distributor got hundreds of returns, and the author lost

several months of income while it got straightened out. It is not an excuse,

but

you probably understand why I enjoyed my inappropriate post.

 

Next, Alon may be right. I talked this morning with a colleague from the larger

world of bookselling who reports that there are now less than sixty significant

independent bookstores in the U.S. (Independent means not owned one of the

chains). The major publishers are moving into print-on-demand in a big way

because they expect there to be no other way to sell their ``backlist'' (most

books older than about a year are typically dropped by the chains).

 

I have a hard time believing that serious work will disappear, but it is not

hard

to see Alon's prediction of blown-up prices coming true. I sometimes look at

the

old inventory sheets for our 70's bookstores, and Asian Books, one of the old-

line scholarly stores that died at the hands of our local discounters, it is

amazing how much has vanished.

 

Bob

 

 

 

bob Paradigm Publications

www.paradigm-pubs.com 44 Linden Street

Robert L. Felt Brookline MA 02445

617-738-4664