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Used Books: An Actual Internet Success Story
theodp writes: "An Actual Internet Success Story explains how, in just a few years, the Internet has transformed the world into a huge marketplace for used books, utterly transforming a business that had gone pretty much unobserved for centuries. The Net has changed how we buy and think about books - someone in Illinois can easily buy a cheap used hardback over the Net from a New York dealer, read it and then resell it to someone in California, having spent, in effect, only a few dollars. According to the story, the increase in the number of used books sold is staggering, maybe 100 times what it was in 1995, and now accounts for more than 15 percent of Amazon's sales. Tales are told of used book dealers lining up nine hours before a library sale to get 'free money,' cutting deals with thrift-store managers and library-sale organizers to avoid 'feeding frenzy' fights, volunteering at the Salvation Army to get first dibs on donations, and offering review copies for half price on the Net weeks before a book is even published."
The same thing has happened with a lot of small mom and pop music shops (although they have mostly quoted the internet as making them go out of business). The bummer is, it takes away some of the "real-world" sentiment and raises the prices significantly. I remember when I went to a garage sale and bought about 30 forgotten realms books for about 50 cents per book. Now days, I'd probably pay 5-10 times that on ebay (plus shipping), plus I wouldn't be able to see the condition of the book, and I'd have to hope the person I'm buying from isn't a crook. As far as the music store goes.. I can no longer pick up a dozen guitar picks and get some string replacements right before I head out to the gig (unless I drive clear accross town). I have to pre-order them. Plus, what ever happened to pulling a garth on the drum set.. or playing stairway on the $3K strat. Those days are all but gone. :(
On the other hand, you can find just about ANYTHING on ebay/amazon.com/etc. You don't have to really drive anywhere to get to it (unless you work during the day and UPS requires a signature.. how annoying). The person selling gets closer to what the item is actually worth because there is more of a market.
In a way it is more convenient but less personal. I suppose that is the way society has always been heading in the technology era we're in. We have to take the good with the bad...
.. X has been unmeasured for centuries, but in the last n years, its gone up 100 times! Please, there is no way to do a realistic study. The best they can say is, used book sold on the web have gone up x amount since we began studying the trend.
There are many used book stores that don't report to anybody.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Online bookstores are great, if you already know what book you want. But, one of the biggest attractions that used bookstores have for me is the thousands of books that I've never heard of. I can spend hours in a bookstore, just browsing through the shelves - that experience is pretty hard to duplicate online.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
back in the '80s, it was said that the rise of the electronic office would dramatically cut the usage of paper in the modern office. the opposite happened!
;-P
i think it is kind of funny then that the internet, this colossal, immediate, hyperlinked textual monstrosity, should greatly increase the market for... used books!!??
so i am hereby predicting the next big media revolution will have everyone reading the saturday evening post... or life magazine... don't ask me how or why, but the precedent is clear. LOL
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is a great example of how capitalism is suppoesed to work. The system will squeeze out as much efficiency as possible from the market. A way for "recycling" these items has become avaiable and now the market has sprung up around it.
I'm sure it pisses off the book publishers, but they can join the ranks of the candle makers and buggy whip producers.
If you're buying a used book so you can read it and then resell it, what are you gaining? Why not just go to the library?
Nosce te Ipsum
There is a concept called the "Right of First Sale", which says that once someone has been sold a physical object (like a book), the seller can't tell them what to do with it. It's theirs to do with as they please.
Now, that does not give them the right to use the product to break other laws (xeroxing the book, scanning it in & posting the results to the net, etc), but if they want to use the book to wallpaper their house, there's nothing the seller can do to stop it.
This gets more complicated when you have to have a license to use what's on the physical thing (like software on a CD), but the First Sale principle is pretty well established in the US.
Why should you care? Because it means that there's no way in hell that used book sales are ever going to be shut down...they're protected by the Right of First Sale. The trading of MP3s is not protected by this, so you can expect a legal fight there.
I think I'm quite the opposite of you. I love books, and I handle them carefully.
But new books have no soul, there is a unique feeling when you have an old book that you know have been in the hands of someone else. The smell, the look of old paper... Sometimes there are notes in the margin, names under the cover, etc.
I have such a book, "Towers, Turrets and Temples". Under the cover there is a mention that it was given as a christmas gift in December 1900...
Try it! Library of Babel
What if the equivalent of the RIAA and the MPAA in the book industry (what's that, the BIAA?) starts suing those who sell used books? The reason? Those who buy used books aren't paying a dime to the author of the books. It must be stealing. Right?
...yet :)
If not, what's the difference between music sharing and used books selling? That I'm giving you a *copy* of a song, and not the original one, right? But who prevents me from deleting the "original" song once you downloaded it from my pc?
...if 'original' and 'copy' has a meaning in a digital world..
ok this was joking. Obviously selling used books isn't a crime.
cheers
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I'm not quite as optimistic as you. While there are areas where this is a win (such as books that were previously unavailable because the only copies were buried in an unknown used bookstore), it is also cutting into the revenue for the book publishers. That's the same money that is used to encourage authors to spend their time writing books instead of writing advertising copy, flipping burgers, or working in a factory.
There are a number of ways the book industry can try and adapt. They can adjust the initial purchase price to reflect the larger average number of people reading each copy. They can cut costs through cheaper materials. They can use cheap materials to make the books fall apart sooner, making it harder to resell the books. They can focus only on the mainstream authors who always sell big numbers.
Now I'm not saying that reselling books is evil, immoral, or illegal. But it does have a potentially negative effect on the book industry, and I believe there's a good chance that that negative effect will get transferred back to the consumer.
Personally I find it amazing that anyone would want to buy a used book ... The damage and wear that multiple reads, shipping, selling, etc puts on books in my opinion ruins them.
And that's why you find it amazing. You don't understand the love of secondhand books.
Good secondhand bookstores are their own microcosm of wonder - especially the ones with creaky wooden floors, three cramped stories packed with floor to ceiling shelves, and overstuffed leather armchairs in odd places. There's a magic about prowling through the slightly yellowed rows of golden age SciFi looking for that one special novel that will complete your obscure author collection (Lloyd Biggle jr, anyone?), and if you don't understand that magic, well, I'm sorry for you. Used/old books have a certain smell and feel that is unique, and I'll guarantee that the great majority of good authors frequent second-hand bookstores.
Keeping books in "perfect condition" is a nice ideal - you should take care of books. My personal peeve is people who mark their place by leaving the book open, face down (Fire and Hemlock's fault). But keeping them in mint condition is unecessarily picky. Books are made to be read, and signs of wear are the marks of a good book. My (third) copy of LOTR is battered, creased, dogeared, and still perfectly readable. I can throw it in my backpack or overcoat pocket for reading on long bus trips, or up on a hill at Uni. Maybe, if it survives further multiple readings, I'll be able to lend it to someone else to love.
And by lend, I usually mean give - I don't try particularly hard to get back really good books that I can easily get another copy of secondhand, which is the whole point of second-hand books. Good books are to be read and shared. Not kept in vacuum storage for their preservation.
|>
Here be Dragons
I remember in the o-Town area a particular comic store on Sand Lake Rd. was closing down after years of business. When I asked the owner, whom I had known for years the real reason of his close down he bitterly said 1 word "divorce".
The other 2 you are talking about I remember and I think that at least one of them may be opening a store front again soon, also though there is that mega-comix store on International which does not help a smaller business in the area epically in such a small market.
Too bad most tourists don't buy comics.
The other 2 you are talking about I remember and I think that at least one of them may be opening a store front again soon, also though there is that mega-comix store on International which does not help a smaller business in the area epically in such a small market.
Too bad most tourists don't buy comics.
There are some things I do miss about the corner store. I am much more prone to pick up a new series or something I haven't seen if I have the opportunity to read through it a bit. Plus I always enjoyed "talking shop" with the owner or clerk for about 20 mins when I stopped in.
Now I just point and click and get exactly what I'm looking for. It's nice and convient and I can get something I could never find in the corner store but I do miss some of the more human aspects.
Conversely an Anmie storm in Columbus, OH has struck a nice balance. They have managed to make 80% of their business off the net and catalog sales however they still maintain a local storefront attached to the warehouse. It was great to go down there and if it was not up front, 90% of the time he had it in the back. Since he automated nearly everything you could still talk shop too.
I think we can strike balance with technology and brick and mortar, the markets just have to find it because in reality all this stuff is still very new.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
Yes, this is true, and not only books, but other things as well.
I don't know about the rest of you who sell on eBay but I've noticed something over the past year or so .. everytime I buy something, I immediately think of the inevitable eBay resale.
Electronics: I will buy a more expensive digital camera because I know I can resell it later to buy the next model. Instead of collecting junk in my closet I can "upgrade" it by selling it and buying something else. I'm already anal about keeping things nice and clean and like-new, so it's no problem keeping stuff in ready to sell condition.
CDs: I used to buy lots of obscure indie/electronic CDs, but I had to pick and choose. Now, I basically buy everything on the new release lists because I know I can unload the ones I don't like on eBay (sometimes for more than I paid for those limited releases).
Books: I don't hesitate to buy the "intro" computer books (e.g., O'Reilly's Learning XML) because once I outgrow them, I can get $10-$15 back on eBay. And I might be helping some programmer who couldn't afford the full price of the new book.
It's not "the internet", it's eBay! eBay is the only Internet company that has really changed things, if you ask me. With eBay, everything can be "try before you buy".
Not necessarily...
And you state why yourself. In many cases, pre-internet, a lot of good stuff would languish in little shops. Sure, there were a lot of buyers out there in the world who would pay a lot for them, but among the shoppers who might find it in the given shop, you couldn't get as much. The shops only had limited floor space and would ultimately have to part with the item before the "right" buyer wondered by.
Markets that are more accessible help both buyers and sellers, but in different ways. Before, serious collectors had to travel extensively or have networks to help them find obscure items. Now, they can just login to the Internet, but they have to compete with a lot of other people.
The benefit to sellers is obvious. To buyers, you are more likely to find that item you are looking for, which ultimately is the best kind of affordability. Before, you often couldn't get things without extensive and expensive travel.
A side note is that in the last week I've sold 5 books on Amazon that I no longer wanted. I got decent money, too, not like the $1 or so at a garage sale. I *HATE* throwing books out -- they need to go to a good home.
Considering the amount of knowledge I've gained and fun I've had because of my locallibrary, I hope that instead of throwing out books, you'd actually donate them.
Libraries are good, as everyone has access to the material, librarians (in general) fight censorship, and help promote learning for the whole citizenship. What better home than that?
I figure it's better to give back to the community institutions that nurtured me and hopefully foster knowledge in another instead of making a few bucks on an auction.
Your library, like most, may have a small selection that does not include the book you are interested in.
You might plan to read it over more than the 1 or 3 week period that the library allows.
You might have bought it intending to keep it but simply have decided that the book wasn't that good, or just not something that you'll ever read again.
You might try to sell it on e-bay for more than the retail price. I have a friend who has sold a lot of books on ebay, both stuff bought at Goodwill for a nickel or dime and sold on-line for $30 or more, as well as new books that she was surprised to see bid up significantly higher than the new book price she paid at Borders for the still in print book (plus an extra profit made in that shipping fee).
You might see it in the book store, want it and buy it now planning on selling it, and still be further ahead than making several trips to your local library (about a 35+ mile round trip drive each time in my case) to pick it up and return it, even if they do have it when you look for it.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I just realized that books are the one media that will continue to be sold and re-sold for the forseeable future. As someone who is currently replacing all his CDs, Videos, DVDs with digital equivalents I can see that sales of 2nd-Hand films and music will fall off in the next few years because a lot of people will be "pirating" their own DVDs, computer games, albums and videos then selling them; once everyone is doing this there will be nobody buying originals to sell on.
With books however we still haven't got to the stage where the electronic "rip" is as good as owning the original. I think it will take years before portable readers are as good as real books (in terms of ease of reading, battery life, portability etc).
The other thing that may happen is that it becomes feasible to print a book to read it then recycling the paper. I think the price of ink in a format to suit a printer will always make this uneconomical though.
Just my thoughts
graspee
the world ... Illinois ... New York ... California
It truly is a small world after all!
Try someone in Australia buys from California if you want to illustrate a "world" market. The amazing thing is that I can buy used books from the US - good quality at much cheaper prices - and beat the incredible cost of imported tech books in Australia.
The internet is much better than the old international "mail order" way of buying books. Finding those mail-order firms by looking through imported journals and newspapers was a lot harder than using the web.
Better still, I want to buy some German books that never even make it to the academic library shelves here, let alone the bookshops. This is a lot easier to do on the web.
You need a bigger concept of the world.
I am anarch of all I survey.