Saturday, October 01, 2005

Used Book Sales (Part 2)

The mom and pop type operations never bothered me. In fact I loved (and still love) them. This is what gives me the jitters.

According to the Book Industry Study Group, used-book sales topped $2.2 billion in 2004, an 11% increase over 2003. Much of that growth can be credited to the Internet.
See if you find this short piece in the L.A. Times interesting (and just a bit scary).

Alfie

1 comment:

Gail Dayton said...

This is a tough question, Alfie. (I wish we had some "pure readers" to comment on this, too.) I'm kind of ambivalent about it myself, because I buy used. Sometimes, that's the only way I can find a particular book because it's gone out of print, or it's a series romance that's no longer available new.

The thing about internet sales is that they are not aimed toward the browser. If you want to buy a used book (or even a new one), it's almost a necessity that you know both title and author--in other words, you really can't just pop into the store (even Amazon) and just browse around and see what might strike your fancy. You have to know EXACTLY what you want and basically zero in on that book.

I do think most of the used book sales increase is in the big bestsellers and the text-book market. I do think there needs to be a way for authors to make money off these transactions, like TV and film creators get money for residuals and so on...but I'm not sure how it can be done. It's something to think about though.