I was looking for wholesale second-hand book suppliers to add to the selection in my (soon to be relaunched) bookshop in Spain. I would like to get my oar in the water before it freezes over even if it is superfluous.

As I understand it, the publishers, at least in England, maybe elsewhere, give large bookshops books on credit and do not claim for ninety to one hundred and twenty days. At that point, the large bookshops return all of the unsold books, thereby leaving the publisher taking all the risk and all the financing.

The books returned are no longer considered new and farmed to remainder and overstock wholesalers. They want, and need to get at least their costs back and they do not always get that. Part of that cost is the author’s royalties or advance.

The author has been paid for every copy sold and maybe even some extra if it did not make its advance. If the system worked as (here) proposed, pulping would be the cheapest solution.

Let us not fool ourselves, the power of the large shop is pressuring the producers and the producers have to pressure their suppliers. The farmer that wants more for their milk may be speaking about one sent a litre, but if that is a five per cent increase, everybody else takes a five per cent increase and the end of the game includes a twenty five per cent increase on the retail price and the farmer is still struggling. Meanwhile, Tescos is posting huge, record breaking, new profits on retail milk.

A S Byatt is asked for in second hand bookshops, (here in any case) and she has decided she is losing something. Success often brings the view not of “I am doing well”, but that “I can be doing so much better for the same effort.” The previously mentioned Tescos put on discount copies of Harry Potter when it came out. They offered a price that the independents could not match and the chains did not try to. I was open then and I remember the hype and pressure the publisher gave me to get my order in early, knowing full well they had a sweetheart deal with Tescos and were prepared to slit my throat with a dull razor; as they did to so many bookshops in England. Tescos is a large food shop chain that has no social conscience, or at least does not seem to have.

But, doesn’t the United States still have Reagan’s inventory tax in place? Doesn’t it still cost text book publishers to store extra textbooks they produce? From what I have heard it nearly doubled the price of textbooks.

It might also interest the readers to know that the copyright laws in most of Europe still restrict the royalties to the authors’ children and grandchildren (50 years) and have not allowed them to spread to the great grandchildren (70 years).

I remember the plant breeder’s rights wars that so bothered so many governments.The USA won that fight and now you have process patents that mean not only do you pay if you produce the same medication, but you have to pay if you use the same process anywhere along the line in doing so for a different medication.

Imagine taking a patent on fire. The process patents would cover picking up two sticks, A bow and string, lightning, even if you are not responsible for it hitting your property, even smoke and heat if they have a good lawyer.

What exactly do the writers of this law really want? What do they really have in mind? I think it may go well beyond second hand books; just like it went way beyond cross ferilisation in flowers.

Used bookstores sell books for as little as ¼ the price of new. This promotes my new work and sometimes my old work as well. Used bookstores should not be paying royalties on books that the royalties already are paid. Although tracking used sales would give authors an idea as to how many people read there work. As it is now only royalties keep track of how many people they touch. I believe each person we touch we influence, each person we influence we become a part of. When we touch another with words that we write, we influence them. Should what we write survive our demise, our ability to influence others survives and for all intent and purposes. A part of us lives forever in those we touch we remain a part of the circle of life.

Every used store is different .
The increased costs of inventory management and so forth would be prohibitive , for my store
It would simply not be feasible to pay royalties to authors on used books . If it were to come into effect ,we would simply refuse to carry books by authors who were part of what ever organization that was policing the law .

Or if the law was to pay royalties on books newer than 2 years we would simply not take newer books . This is not much of an issue , as it normally takes 6 to 12 months b4 a current issue paperback book will show up with any regularity anyway . some categories like science-fiction , and children s books it takes even longer .

Furthermore , I doubt very much that the new bookstores would seriously support this . We have an excellent relationship with the local new bookstore in my area ,and we often refer our customers back and forth between one another . People often discover an author in my store , and once they have tried them , go to the new book store to buy them , sometimes they will have us order the book in from the new store .

We rely on having a good new bookstore in the area , to put new books into the pipeline , and keep our stock fresh . We share the same customer , many of whom have told me they are more comfortable buying new books , because they can get something out of it after they have read the book by trading it into my store . This adds extra value to the new books , which are getting prohibitively expensive for many customers .

In my system , we give a trade credit of 50% of what we price a book in the store for as an in store credit which you can use to buy more books . This quasi cash system would be a major problem as well , I am not going to pay a royalty on a book i did not get cash for .

The access issue is a serious one , used bookstores really are a huge part of the book industry , and provide access to a much bigger variety of titles than any new store can , thus keeping authors works available to the consumer . I was in a Chapters bookstore recently , ( I like chapters ,I am not trying to criticize them but using them as an example ) you could fit my books store into their store 10 times over , it is huge , and they have tons of books , but not many titles . The thing that struck me is that while they have huge quantities of books ,they are all the same few books . they do not have a huge selection of titles ( for a new book store they have a good selection ) but compared to even a small used bookstore they do not . I have way more titles than they have , even though they are 10 times bigger than me .

Authors who think they are being cheated because they don’t get a cut of the used business , would be surprised how much they would loose if the used industry was not there . Used bookstores keep authors current . without us , there would be an awful lot of authors who only ever get to publish 1 book , and never get discovered in the 6 month window where that book is available on the new shelves , then fade away into obscurity .

Most authors take years between writing books , and their books usually are off the store shelves long b4 their next book comes out .Authors should look at the used book stores as either a 2nd chance to be discovered by a new reader ,and keep interest in them high enough that someone will buy their next book . They should view the used book stores an bonus publicity , once the new stores dump them , for what ever is hot this month.

Should I receive royalties on books I did not get paid for?

I have no problum when I have been paid you can sell a book a hundred times it’s when I haven’t been paid.

If they want to give the book to someone else without payment, I do not have a problum. But if you are going to profit from my work shouldn’t I recive some of that profit?

This is not about receiving fair payment, it’s flat out greed. Just as a customer can only have one copy of a book, computer program or song paid for, the company selling it has no business asking to be paid twice for the same single item.

All they will accomplish or cause is justifying piracy of ebooks by readers the same way DRM justified it for music listeners. I say screw ‘em – honesty begets honesty, and ripping off the customers in this way cost them profits. Trust pays more than distrust ever will.

No other field of human activity offers this kind of control and beyond the grave earnings.

We need to go back to first principles in this whole argument and ask what kind of world we want to live in. Are we seriously suggesting that every person who produces any object or who writes any item of original writing is then imbued with a lifelong, and 70 years beyond their lifetime, right to make money each and every time it is sold ? to follow it down through it’s lifetime through each and every individual passing of the object ? what an utterly appalling, big-brother and nonsensical vista this is, and what a shockingly greedy and grasping attempt this is to earn more and more and more money.

Yes, we need to go back to first principles and go back to the principle of the one-off sale. You sell something and it now belongs to the buyer. Simple. You get one chance to earn whatever profit you believe you are entitled to and then it ends. If you do not earn enough from this sale then it is up to you, the producer/writer, to persuade the buyer to pay more, or to produce a better product in order to earn a higher price. Whether it is a book, a painting, a carving, a painted saucer, a model airplane etc etc.

This is basic, simple, fairness and justice and it leave everyone knowing exactly where they stand. It allows individual people to get on with their lives without the long grasping arm of the producer reaching down, perhaps from the grave, to pick pocket yet another dollar from us.

Howard

Apologies for not linking to this post in my blog post; there were a number of blogs where I read about this issue, including this one. Nothing intentional about the exclusion.

Best,

Matthew Wayne Selznick

Today, I can go into Gamestop and buy a used copy of a game for my XBOX 360, bring it home and we’re good. That really pisses off game companies.

So the proposed “solution” is tying key content to the original purchaser. So say I buy some first person shooter and activate it at home. I’m good — I can go through and beat the sucker.

Then I get bored and sell the game used either through Gamestop or give it to a friend. With the online components the XBOX knows he’s not the original purchaser and say makes it impossible for him to play the final boss…instead when he reaches that point he gets a message that he can get to that final area if he ponies up $10 or something similar.

BTW, in the book example, if a used book store selling a book is a bad idea, isn’t me giving a book I’ve finished to a friend even worse? There’s no barrier to entry there…should books ship with EULAs saying that once I open the cover I’m not allowed to retransmit, etc., etc??

This is getting to sound a lot we’re living in Richard Stallman’s “The Right to Read” world…and here I always thought that was a bit on the histronics. I guess not.

The second hand booksellers through Amazon tack on a heavy shipping charge that almost always nullifies that as a first option.

No, this is Amazon’s call. If you notice, the shipping charge on all used books on Amazon is $3.99 for a standard mass market paperback.