On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Dave Feldman <[email protected]> wrote: > > You made so many good points in your post but the one in the second > sentence above just isn't true. > Publishers do not give greater discounts to > the big box stores than to independents. They aren't allowed to. > > That doesn't mean the big chains don't have ways to eke out some extra > bucks from the publishers. > B&N and Borders squawked that the publishers were saving money by > shipping books to central > warehouses of the chains rather than to each individual store. It is > true that this saved the publishers > money, but it also was the preference of the chains. They were able > to extract a self-distribution discount for this, > I believe about equal to the actual cost-saving of the publishers. > > Traditionally, the chains have held the dominant relationship with the > publishers, extracting fees for end-caps, getting > into seasonal catalogs, front-of-store placement, etc. (all of which > have been given to some independents, too). But > the chains haven't been all bad. In the past, they had the pockets to > carry a broader range of books than independents, because > of their deep pockets and greater shelf space. Although the bottom- > line of the buyers had to be financial, most of the buyers at, say, > B&N, knew their subject matter and cared about the content. I was > lucky enough to see a meeting between a sales person at a > major publisher and a buyer at B&N (both were pros), and when the > sales guy promised that a certain fiction title was worthy despite > no obvious commercial hook, the buyer, against his better judgment, > made a buy that was trivial to the bookseller but a big deal to the > author > and the publisher. That was yeas ago; I doubt that kind of purchase > would be made today. > > As you suggest, the stupidest policy in the book business is the > return situation. Where else can a retailer buy product and return > 100% of it for full-price (minus shipping costs)?
I'll concede your point about price since I never had an opportunity to go in depth about how the book business is run. When I have read articles about the closing of independent bookstores, the owners have always stressed that the problem was the difference in the way they were treated by the publishers. They said it was an uneven playing field in favor of the chains and it left them no option other than to close their stores. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
