danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

As a student of literature, I buy a goodly number of books.  For the sake of convenience, I acquire many at Goerings Bookstore on 1st Avenue, just a block north of campus.  All the English professors put their orders in there, and the store is generally well-stocked.  Plus, they have titles that the big stores in town (Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Books-a-Million) might not generally carry.  Actually, you’d be surprised at the important novels that I haven’t been able to find at some of the chain stores – Oliver Twist, for instance.  Next time you’re in one of these stores, see what Dickens novels they have.  If they don’t have a copy of Bleak House that’s a bad sign.  That said, authors like Aphra Behn or Mary Elizabeth Braddon are considerably less well-known, and I can understand how difficult it would be to stock every work of classic literary fiction and still have room for the mandatory coffee shop in the front corner.

For this reason, it’s convenient that Amazon.com exists.  If I have the time to wait, and I can put together an order substantial enough to qualify for free shipping, it’s hard to beat Amazon.  I value having a brick-and-mortar store like Goerings, and I want them to succeed.  For all I know, they’re doing very well, since they get so much student business.  But in several respects no brick-and-mortar store, including Goerings, can compete with Amazon.

First, Amazon charges below cover price for most of their paperback books.  Sometimes this is a substantial discount.  For example, the Penguin edition of Clarissa bears a cover price of $24.95, and that is what you’d pay anywhere else, including Borders (I saw a copy at a Borders in Chapel Hill, North Carolina last August).  At Amazon, however, you can get a brand new copy of Richardson’s absurdly long novel for $16.47.  That’s a substantial discount.

Second, of course, is selection, which I mentioned above.  At a good independent brick-and-mortar shop, you will certainly find a copy of Wuthering Heights.  (If you don’t, turn around a walk out; they don’t deserve your business.)  Often, however, they may only have a mass-market edition, like Signet, which is inexpensive, but bare-bones.  The Penguin and Oxford editions are better, and just a few dollars more.  Best of all, though, especially for something like Wuthering Heights, is the Norton Critical Edition, which has translations of Joseph’s incomprehensible mumblings.  You can find all of these at Amazon.

Finally, Amazon has built an astonishing used marketplace.  For paperback classics it is often no cheaper after shipping to buy used than new, but for almost everything else it is.  But the easy availability of used books (and CDs and DVDs, too) is apparently a mixed blessing.  David Streitfeld wrote an especially interesting article last weekend about his conflicted feelings regarding buying and selling used books online.  On one hand, it’s such a convenient and cost-effective way for readers to shop.  On the other hand, it hurts publishers, bookstores and authors.  This doesn’t apply to Samuel Richardson or Charles Dickens, of course, but it does affect living writers (and songwriters and filmmakers), and the shops that sell their wares.  Streitfeld’s article cites a California shop owner who criticized him for “depriving” the author of income, and driving bookshops out of business.

I have a problem with that sort of logic.  We buy books for what’s written on their pages, but they are still physical objects, as are CDs and DVDs.  As a physical objects, they take space on our shelves and coffee tables.  They can be loaned to friends or sold to strangers.  Those in the business of publishing would have us think this is wrong.  Of course, if they had their way there would be no libraries either.  They can whine until the end of time, but they cannot convince me that when I am finished reading a book I should throw it away in the garbage or leave it to collect dust on my shelf.  If I want to pass it along to a friend I will.  If I want to sell it to someone else I will.

The music industry fought a losing battle against MP3 for years.  They feared that MP3 made it too easy to steal music.  That is, one person made an MP3 of a song, then posted it online for others to take without paying anything.  They also didn’t like the idea of consumers not having to buy an entire $18 CD when they only wanted one song.  I acknowledge that it isn’t easy to make an argument in favor of loaning MP3s given the lack of physical medium.  The labels now know that they can save a ton on production and distribution in an MP3 world.  Likewise, publishers can save a fortune selling e-books.  Do you think that record labels and book publishers care about record stores and bookshops?  I don’t think they do.

It’s clear to me that everyone is simply trying to get as much money as they can however they can, and will use whatever flawed reasoning it takes to justify their greed.  If publishers could figure out a way to charge a fee for literacy I think they would.

Filed under: Literature and Books, Rantings on December 31st, 2008