on the cost of saving money....
Dec. 28th, 2008 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanBargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It
"For readers and collectors, these resellers, as they are called, offer a great service. Lost in the hand-wringing over the state of the book industry is the fact that this is a golden age for those in love with old-fashioned printed volumes: more books are available for less effort and less money than ever before. A book search engine like ViaLibri.net can knit together 20,000 booksellers around the world offering tens of millions of nearly new, used or rare books.
One consequence has been to change the calculations involved in buying a book. Given the price, do I really want to read this? Now it’s become both an economic and a moral issue? How much do I want to pay, and where do I want that money to go? To my local community via a bookstore? To the publisher? To the author?
In theory, I want to support all of these fine folks. In practice, I decide to save a buck."
EtA: just to clarify, y'all do understand that the above is from the article, and not my own words? I didn't bring the world "moral" into it....
Comments?
"For readers and collectors, these resellers, as they are called, offer a great service. Lost in the hand-wringing over the state of the book industry is the fact that this is a golden age for those in love with old-fashioned printed volumes: more books are available for less effort and less money than ever before. A book search engine like ViaLibri.net can knit together 20,000 booksellers around the world offering tens of millions of nearly new, used or rare books.
One consequence has been to change the calculations involved in buying a book. Given the price, do I really want to read this? Now it’s become both an economic and a moral issue? How much do I want to pay, and where do I want that money to go? To my local community via a bookstore? To the publisher? To the author?
In theory, I want to support all of these fine folks. In practice, I decide to save a buck."
EtA: just to clarify, y'all do understand that the above is from the article, and not my own words? I didn't bring the world "moral" into it....
Comments?
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 04:49 pm (UTC)I will always buy new if what I want is still in print. I might make an exception for an excessively expensive textbook or art book, but more often than not I buy new. Amazon's outside booksellers don't attract me because the shipping eats up whatever savings there might be in buying used. I do like to plunder the local used bookstore for research books, which tend to be the sort that are extremely expensive new and often what I find is out of print. But for nearly anything else I order from Amazon or pick it up at Barnes & Noble.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:02 pm (UTC)- library
- media swap groups
- bought online, used
- bought online, new
- flea markets
- I occasionally find a book in trashcans
I mostly buy books online, instead of at a bookstore, because online retailers offer a better exchange rate for non-German books. I read a lot. However, at current prices (and here in Germany, book prices are fixed by law, you can't get a bargain on a new German language book), I can't afford to buy duds. Duds being books that turn out to be boring, so that I don't even finish reading them. Or even books that I will finish reading, but I know I won't want to reread them for whatever reason.
Another reason is storage space, but that's beside the point.
So. I like to read, but I can't really afford current book prices. I made a deal with my wife: I sell off my old media (books, comics, CDs, DVDs, VHS*), and I get to spend that money on buying new media. With that limited budget (in 07 and 08, it was a bit over €200 each), I have to pick and choose from all of the above.
So when I find out about a book I want to read, I hit the library first. (The same goes for DVDs by now -- our library has a terrific selection.) If they don't have a copy, I'll check my swap groups to see if I can swap in a copy. If it turns out that it's not a keeper, I'll resell or swap it back out again. Used copies of English language books can frequently be had for a fraction of cover price. And really, if you have only €200 - € 300 a year to spend on entertainment, it does make a considerable difference if you pay €10 or €5 -- twice the books at the latter price. New books -- by now I have to be pretty desperate to buy new books. And definitely not in German, because they tend to cost up to twice as much as an paperback novel from the US.
I only buy new if I can't get a book any other way.
Is it a moral issue? Not for me. It's a choice of whether or not I get new stuff to read at all. My budget is small enough to not make a difference. Granted, it does make a difference if 1000 or more people with no/low budgets make the same decision. But since the question is mostly whether we buy them used or not at all, it doesn't make much of a difference.
* Yes, I still have VHS tapes. I'm trying to get rid of them however, and not acquiring more.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:05 pm (UTC)I'd rather the money go to an author, of course. But what I can't figure out is how Amazon, which now accounts for some 30% of (online?) book purchases, can offer discounts to the degree it does, and still make money; the publisher also has to still be making at least SOME money; so the retail price of the book, before all those discounts-while-still-making-profit, seems exaggeratedly high.
Some books you just can't find anywhere except from a reseller. So, yes, I buy from resellers. I buy more books than the average bear, and I flat cannot afford list, or often even discounted prices, any more. It annoys me that so many economic decisions are now being claimed as "moral" issues. The saying used to be "everything is political." Now, everything is moral. Or immoral, as the case may be.
Whoever puts together a cheap, easy web storefront package that authors can install on their webpages is going to make a fortune. And I'd love to see a sample printing and a distribution contract. As I say, I'd rather the money went to the author, but that's because I want to buy more of their books, and if they stop writing, I can't. The piper must be paid. The publicist, hairdresser, makeup artist, and flute polisher, not so much.
Do you know about Authors' Studio and Bellebooks? Now those are interesting efforts.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:07 pm (UTC)Really? The last book I bought was this one:
http://www.amazon.de/Worst-Case-Scenario-Survival-Handbook-Handbooks/dp/0811831310/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1230483878&sr=8-2
Cost new: €9.20. Cost used: 1 cent, plus €3 for s&h.
Now, Amazon.com charges s&h even when you buy books. (At least they always charged me when I bought a book from .com and had it sent to someone in the US.) Amazon.de, in my country, doesn't charge s&h for books. And yet, even with s&h from the reseller, I pay only a third of the price of a new copy.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:08 pm (UTC)my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:13 pm (UTC)well, except for the publisher who goes out of business, an the writer who has to get another full-time job to pay the mortgage, the groceries, and the tuition bills, as well as their own book-habit....
For the record: I buy books direct from publishers/small presses. I buy them second-hand. I buy them in bookstores. I get them from libraries. I buy remaindered copies and feel guilty. But I know that if I don't put money back to the source (the writer) the source will dry up.
Yeah, there will always be people putting their work up for free. I've read slush. Don't want to do it again for free.
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:19 pm (UTC)As I said, if I didn't earn my entertainment (read: book) money by reselling my used books, I would have no entertainment money at all. Actually, it's the other way around: I sometimes feel guilty for spending that money on buying new entertainment rather than giving it to my wife to help with the household budget.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:23 pm (UTC)Precisely. Moral doesn't enter into it.
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:23 pm (UTC)Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:33 pm (UTC)The recent price increases of snack food in Germany have done wonders for my waistline. :) And the announced price increases of comic books free up some of my entertainment money. I'm already eyeing the Hard Case Crime Library list for interesting stuff. Which they have aplenty. And affordably.
So let's say that the three Dollars I save by not buying two comics that I used to buy go to novels. Should I feel bad for buying a Christa Faust novel because that is money which Peter David will never see a share of?
One of the reasons why I read more US paperbacks (other than preferring to read books in the original language) is because they are far cheaper than German paperbacks. Now, if I buy a US copy of a novel for €5.99 from Amazon.de, should I feel bad for not buying an identical copy for €8.00 at a bookstore (the figures are typical by the way, and not made up)? Should I feel bad because now the writer gets a share, and the publisher gets some money, but the German publisher who publishes the translated edition, which they sell for €9.95 or €12.95, don't get a share?
When you start on that road, where does it end?
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:34 pm (UTC)Three Dollars each, sorry for the imprecision.
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:43 pm (UTC)Um. Who said you ever should? All of life is about making choices. One author gets the sale, another doesn't. One road is taken, another isn't. One person gets asked to dance, the rest don't. The article isn't talking about choosing WHO, it's talking about choosing HOW, and what the long-term cost of that choice may be.
If we're going to discuss, let's make sure we're discussing the same thing!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:43 pm (UTC)I always rig it so I get free shipping from Amazon, but can't do that when I order from their secondary booksellers. Dunno how they do it in Deutschland. Some books are cheaper than others, but all in all I don't find so much savings in buying used when shipping one book at a time.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:48 pm (UTC)A agree. If I buy new it's because I can and I prefer new books. I should have said that in my earlier post.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:49 pm (UTC)Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:50 pm (UTC)It's all the same thing. In any case, in each case, in every case, the choice is a matter of economics. Nothing more, nothing less.
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 05:58 pm (UTC)Again, I'm not dissing buying used or secondhand, or trading. I'm not saying Thou Must Buy New. And even if I did, so what? But there is more to the situation than "can I feed my habit in this crap economy?" [also: libraries. Bless 'em. They buy their copies so you don't have to...]
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:01 pm (UTC)And it should be noted that I only collect hardbacks.
My preference is to buy new. Usually, I pre-order the book from Amazon, snagging free shipping and about a 30% discount off the cover price.
If a book I want is no longer available as "new" (and still a hardback), I'll go through other sources, though I have a bias against Book Club editions, and I find a lot of used book dealers don't always note a BCE in the description.
I like buying from small presses (and not just because I've started my own), but sometimes buying direct is just too pricey, and I turn back to amazon and order the small press work from there to get the discount.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:12 pm (UTC)I don't think it's a moral issue at all. I think it's a practicality thing all around. By practicality I mean that it is a good idea to support the writer and publisher when possible, in order to ensure the industry doesn't go bust. I certainly don't feel guilty when I buy used. I've recently inherited several thousand volumes from my dad's library, and don't even feel a twinge that I'll probably never need to buy another mystery novel or nonfiction about aviation history. But I do rather hope that the publishing industry doesn't crumble to dust for lack of revenue.
Pardon my rambling
Date: 2008-12-28 06:19 pm (UTC)Most of my used books come from Goodwill, Savers, and Bookmans in North Phoenix (though I do not go there often because of the distance involved). The nearest Goodwill is a particularly good source of books. Two weeks ago, I bought a mint condition "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" for only $4. The price sticker from the original bookstore was $14.79. I'm a writer, and I like supporting authors because I want to be a published novelist as well. But if I buy their book used - and like it - chances are high I'll buy more of their books in new condition. I also post reviews of everything I read on 50bookchallenge, and I've had several people say they bought books based on my comments.
The important thing is balance. I buy new often and support the industry and authors directly. I buy used often, too, and get the thrill of the thrift shop find and I get to help out a charity at the same time. I can't afford to buy everything new - I would just not be able to buy, period.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 07:20 pm (UTC)Note, as a favorite fictional character once said, I'm not offering you a choice between this and some better offer.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 07:45 pm (UTC)Was just trying to save a few dollars.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 07:53 pm (UTC)The bind does raise interesting questions and long-term dilemmas though, doesn't it? Which was why I posted this -- not to scold or chide or shame anyone, despite what some folk seem to think, but to get people thinking and talking about the very real problem.
(this is also why I got involved in BookView Cafe, for those of you who can't afford to feed your need. Free fiction! Short stories! Novels! Right there! Have you checked it out yet?)
Re: my .02
Date: 2008-12-28 07:53 pm (UTC)But that's okay, so long as they're read.
Maybe publishers should rethink their business model and not, like the music producers, wait until it's too late.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 08:31 pm (UTC)I spent nearly ten years in the used, rare and antiquarian book trade. Many of our customers tended to be parents trying to get their kid's school reading list together for as little money as possible, and serious collectors who were willing to pay big $$ for that hard-to-find volume. But our bread and butter customers were the genre readers who bought used paperbacks at least once a week. As much as my boss wanted to phase out the paperbacks to focus on scholarly nonfiction, we simply couldn't. It was the paperback sales that paid the rent and kept the lights on.
And fwiw, most of our paperback customers were looking for books that had long gone out of print, not the brand new title from a favorite author. Those they were willing to get from B&N or Amazon. But the back catalog books? Those were the ones they came to us to find.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 08:46 pm (UTC)very occasionally I'll buy from ebay, but mostly graphic novels and hardbacks for pieces of series that are half paperback/half hardback.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 09:10 pm (UTC)Even with all that, I still buy new books regularly - usually at Borders, but I'll stop at B&N if I'm desperate. Once in awhile Amazon if can't find it elsewhere. I buy used online at Abebooks, Powells, or locally at Half Price Books. Or yard sales, craigslist or anywhere else. I rarely use the library, but that's due to the wait here in Austin. For anything current or remotely close to a bestseller, the wait is usually 2 months or better.
I also read free online at various places and yes, there is a lot of slush to slog through. If you are persistent, there is plenty of good stuff to be read. I prefer a real book to online, butI'll take what I can get. It would be nice if I could buy everything new and all the money went to all the cogs in the wheel, but I can't afford that. I spend what I can where I can, and hope for the best. There is no reason to feel guilty if you can't purchase all new books every time. The economy is what it is, and our budgets reflect that. Before my current job, I rarely bought new books and if my job goes down the tubes, I'll be back to that again.
No matter what happens, I doubt my reading habits will change. I'll continue to spend money where I can, when I can, and hope for the best.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 09:37 pm (UTC)your failure to read is not our failure to advertise...
Date: 2008-12-28 09:45 pm (UTC)http://suricattus.livejournal.com/975194.html
http://suricattus.livejournal.com/976757.html
http://suricattus.livejournal.com/981754.html
http://suricattus.livejournal.com/991747.html
http://suricattus.livejournal.com/992749.html
Re: your failure to read is not our failure to advertise...
Date: 2008-12-28 09:52 pm (UTC)And not skim the stories like I can skim lj postings.
Re: your failure to read is not our failure to advertise...
Date: 2008-12-28 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 10:58 pm (UTC)Cory Doctorow has always given away the text of his novels online. And rather than that hurting sales of the physical objects, it's helped. He recently stated over at boingboing that the hardcover of Little Brother is now in its eighth printing, and the novel is selling so well that the publisher has delayed printing of the paperback for another year.
So who knows what to believe!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 11:22 pm (UTC)Myself, I see 'free' books -- in Cory's case, mostly e-format intentionally given away or pirated -- as great publicity for readers who then turn around and buy the book in hard format, or buy the next book, or the backlist. If it were the majority of the readership getting them free, though, I wonder where Cory earns his income.... not from novels, that's for sure! And who would pay his editor, or the typesetter (even e-books have to be set, the pixels don't just magical recreate themselves!) and so forth and so on.
"Cheap" books have always been with us. The first used bookstore opened ten minutes after the first book was read. What people seem to be overlooking in their comments is (according to the article) that it's not the fact that's a problem, but the increasing abundance of those resales that's a problem.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 03:24 am (UTC)That said, if it's an OOP book, or a much-loved author whose catalog I'm trying to collect on the cheap because they are only out in TPB (which I loathe, but I do have a few authors that I buy their books RIGHT AWAY in TPB), then I'm going to hit the used bookstore, because I have a limited budget for books, and I generally can't afford brand-new for TPBs. (I don't buy hardbacks for the same reason.)
I also enjoy shopping in my local used bookstores, supporting a local business and checking to see if they have anything good, just to browse. Bookstores are a love of mine, even used.
Hmm...
Date: 2008-12-29 01:09 pm (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-12-29 01:18 pm (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-12-29 01:29 pm (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2008-12-29 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 05:59 pm (UTC)As a reader, I buy new (in hardcover and mass market paperback and very very seldom in trade - I hate trade paperback books on a tactile level - I can't read 'em one-handed easily, which I can with hardcovers and mmpbs), I buy used in used-bookstores, thrift stores, and Goodwill, I swap, etc.
My decisions on how to acquire a book are based on a combination of factors.
1)
Will someone else in my household/circle of friends want to read this too? If so, I am likely to buy it within a week or so of it coming out, in whatever format it is first published in, new, from a mortar bookstore. Of course, I'm making this purchase with the explicit plan of loaning it to others for free, and no royalties from those lendings will accrue to the authors. This is one of the reasons I don't like e-books, btw. The majority of books and comics I purchase, I purchase to loan. If I can't loan it, I won't buy it.
2)
Will my local library (or one of my local libraries) be likely to purchase it? With most mass market original paperbacks in the romance and fantasy genres, I expect that my library will not purchase it. All three of the metro county library systems I frequent have abysmal track records in buying paranormal and fantasy with any kind of appeal to me. So I plan to buy those books new.
On the other hand, my library system does a great job of buying the hard sf and mystery novels that interest me (and which have basically 0 re-read appeal for me), so I rarely if ever purchase hard sf or mystery.
3)
Do I feel a personal debt to the author in some attenuated manner? This category largely involves authors whose online blogs/LJs add pleasure to my daily online life. Their works tend to get bought, and bought new in 1st format published. This is a very, very short list, but full of books that usually would not be purchased because the library has them or no one else in my house reads them.
4)
Do I want the book for ongoing research? Or for participation in an online discussion/community? I am totally format and source agnostic in this - except that the library is generally not a good choice for me here, as I rack up huge overdue fines and never get around to reading the books. Generally this also breaks down into new or used from mortar.
5)
Did I already read the book without paying for it [used, from library, from friend, etc.], and now want to read it again? If an author is compelling enough that I wish to re-read their work, I will usually go out and buy a new copy if still in print. That author deserves to get the royalty they're owed. I wish they all had little online tip jars - I'd just go to their website and micropay a dollar, leave a comment "read your book at the library, it was great, thanks!"
6)
I read books at bookstores all the time. I go in and buy a cocoa or something and sit and read two or three books cover to cover before leaving. When I was a broke college dropout, it was that or used, all the way. I have to say that almost 100% of the authors I read in this way ended up getting new book sales from me when I got a real job and had money again.
Having worked for several cash strapped public libraries, I fear political pressure that would push U.S. public libraries towards the U.K. model of paying royalties per circ (like U.S. radio play lists).
Overall my impression is that where we are heading is towards a modified, internet-mediated form of dispersed patronage of artists: successful artists are those who build a community of readers interested in supporting their work and career through buying new books, etc. Sort of like old school 1-rich-dude patronage, except with many semi-broke fans replacing 1-rich-dude.
I think this sucks for a lot of great authors who did well under the existing publishing model and may not do well under evolving models. However, there will doubtless be many good and successful authors who will do better under newly evolved models than they would have done before.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 06:01 pm (UTC)