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Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 31, 2008 5:39:29 GMT
Interesting thread. It seems to me (going by my stepchildren and their pals) that the youth of today don't want to read. They'd rather watch TV, DVDs or chat to each other on-line/via text if they're not actually meeting up. I remember my parents moaning that decimalisation was a con to put prices up. My dad, uncle and grandfather had collected Ian Fleming's Bond novels for me, which all seemed to carry the 3/6 price tag. This should have translated as 17 and a half new pee. I bought one book for this price, than they all jumped to 20p, and shortly after 25 then 30. And it's true - most newsagents seemed to have a wall of multi-genre paperbacks.
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Post by eddempster on Aug 31, 2008 8:48:57 GMT
It's been a while since I've stopped into a newsagent's, so I guess things have changed without me noticing, but I remember when I was a kid they always had a stand full of paperbacks - a good mix of them, too.
Our village shop is in trouble since the govt took away the post office part of it a couple of months ago. The owner says his earnings have now halved, so he's trying to diversify. I wonder if he would benefit from keeping a small stock of books. After all there are a lot of people out here who never go into town, and their only exposure to books comes in the form of a library bus.
Do you think the scrapping of the net book agreement has anything to do with the demise of the paperback? I've seen three local book shops close over the last ten years, which makes me very sad, because I used to love browsing around in them.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 10, 2008 11:24:48 GMT
absolutely. shops tended to take about half of a published price, which would be ok if not for the fact that they were getting a lot of stuff on sale or return. so when the net book went down, so reps started to do deals - 'take x of new title by unknown author and we give you huge discount on y famous author - and a free dump bin', which was soon followed by 'if you want x freebie copies of this book then you won't have shelf-space for these copies of a book rom a smaller rival...' and so the number of titles went down.
some shops went against this trend, and they're the ones still around now. my local one is thriving, helped by the fact that it does book search for old and new, actively promotes ordering and prompt delivery of titles not in stock, and is at least a bus ride from the nearest competitor, chain or otherwise.
publishers are also to blame. the huge advances that weren't recouped or took ages to come back that were give in the late eighties/early nineties caused less chances on new books, and the disappearance of the mid-list - slow, steady sellers that didn't stay on catalogue long and were good for turnover - which is where most pulp appeared.
one unnamed publisher, talking of an unnamed fantasy author, said to me last month 'i mean, x doesn't need to write another book ever again as his back catalogue sells. in fact, i hope he doesn't 'cause we'll be obliged to give him half a million quid and that comes off my budget!'
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