The Market for Books: Are Used Books Really What's Wrong?

[pameladlloyd]

mmegaera recently discussed a New York Times article in which David Streitfeld bemoans the state of the publishing industry and ties this to readers' book buying habits:

What's undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers.

In other words, it's all the fault of people like myself, who increasingly use the Internet both to buy books and later, after their value to us is gone, sell them.

The idea that people who purchase used books are responsible for the current economic woes of publishers sparked a fair amount of outrage over in mmegaera's journal, as we dissected the offending article and our dislike for the suggestion that we should feel guilty about making sound economic decisions when deciding how to buy books.

Here's what I had to say in my primary comment:

This isn't the first time I've come across the idea that by buying used books we are cheating authors (and, now, publishers) of their due. It's easy to fall prey to the idea and I felt the author of the article handled it less bombastically than many.

One idea that is often lost in the criticism of buying used books is the fact that in order for there to be a used book, there must have been someone who first bought the book new. Those of us who buy used books (and I often did when I could still afford to, now I simply use the library), do so because we can buy many used books for the price of a single new one. Or, because we can manage a single used book, when we can't buy even one new one. It's simple economics. In hard times, whether they are personal hard times, or hard times for many, we tighten our belts and buy used whenever we can. It applies to books, but also to many other things.

It is odd, though, that we find articles in which people brag about the wonderful bargains they've found at the second hand store, in clothes, shoes, furniture, and what have you, and make of this practice a virtue (part of the environmental trio, reduce, reuse, recycle), while those of us who do the same with books are criticized for contributing to the downfall of an industry.

BTW, in the full interests of disclosure, my husband buys books and resells them on Amazon. He was, at one time a book scout, who brought books to used book stores. Later, he owned his own used book store. He's also been the manager of a chain book store. The books he buys from estate sales, yard sales, library sales, and thrift stores can't help the author or the publisher, they've already done that, but they can help our family out during these hard times. So, I hope that all who read this will realize that there is no reason for guilt about buying used.

As if the whole guilt trip wasn't bad enough, I was greeted by a comment by Matthew Selznick on LinkedIn's Just for Writers group about A Movement To Charge Used Booksellers and Change Copyright Law. His post in the group discussion area led me to his recent blog post on this subject.

I find the idea of imposing a resale fee upon used books, or any other kind of media, entirely unreasonable. After all, if I buy a car, then decide to sell it, I'm not expected to pay a fee that will go to the car designer or manufacturer; it's mine, to do with as I like. The designer and manufacturer have already been paid for their work and don't expect to be paid again. To expect used book sellers to pay such a fee to support the authors and publishers who have already been paid for their work is discriminatory and ridiculous.

The argument that, somehow, intellectual properties are being endangered by the market in used books seems quite a far stretch and I sincerely hope that no one takes it seriously. The new and used book markets, as Selznick points out, are not so much competitive, as mutually supportive. The used book market can't exist without new books, with every used book sold representing a new book sold, and the new book market is improved by the sale of used books. As Selznick's blog post pointed out, used book sales drive new book sales, as anyone who's ever bought a used book by an author they didn't know and liked it enough to search out additional books by that author, even when this meant purchasing them new. So, it's clear that this movement isn't about compensating authors--they've already been compensated for that sale (and there's no other business that expects to receive a portion of the sale of used items)--but about something else. There are a number of proposed changes to copyright law that I've heard of in recent years that increasingly act to limit our access to information, which leads me to a very cynical view of this proposal.

I also think the consequences of such changes would be absolutely disastrous to everyone concerned, ultimately lowering the compensation to authors for their works while also driving most small used book sellers out of business. Independent brick and mortar book stores, including those selling used books, are becoming increasing rare due to the competition of big box stores. Many of the used book sellers on Amazon either use Amazon sales to supplement their store sales, have given up a physical store entirely, or are very small mom-and-pop operations getting by on a shoestring. The sale of used books online is actually far more labor intensive than most people realize. Anything that requires more record keeping will be an undue burden. But, beyond that, the so-called "fair percentage" will make these already only marginally profitable sales less profitable, so that many businesses will simply have to stop selling used books entirely, or may even have to go out of business.

ETA: For more information about the Novelists Inc. position on used book sales, see their articles, Amazon.com's policy of promoting used books in competition with new book sales (in which they are joined by The Authors Guild) and Used Book Sales.

Comments

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I'd love to know how they could possibly enforce a copyright law of that nature.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I suspect the same as how ASCAP and BMI enforce it for music played in clubs, bars, and restaurants. The bookstore owner would buy a license based on the store's "footprint" and potential number of books. That license fee wold go into a "pool," which would then be distributed among publishers and writers, in theory.

It's still a stupid idea, because it is not at all like public performances of music. I'm just saying this is the most likely model they would use.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I had no idea how licenses were handled for live music.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine that enforcement would be handled in much the same way that tax laws are. But, anyone doing business through a site like Amazon would just have such fees automatically taken from their earnings.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I should have unpacked my comment but it was late. I agree with mmerriam about the 'how', but there are awkward exceptions. For example, my public library has two book sales every year during which it sells enormous numbers of recently published books. If libraries as lenders of books are exempt, what happens when they sell books? What about thrift shops or charity book sales? I think I know the answer to those questions as well, but what I'm suggesting is that if customers are forced to pay more for second-hand books or if book shops and paperback book exchanges go out of business, those of us who buy mostly used books will find other ways to get them.

Many millions of unsold books are pulped every year. Why should consumers be penalised because the publishing industry is a mess? ^RQ

That's my superscript for Rhetorical Question.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I very much agree with you. The idea is a bad one and poorly thought out on a number of levels. It hurts consumers, businesses, and (I suspect) the entire publishing industry.

[azurelunatic]

If print books were something that someone could reasonably make an identical copy of before passing along, the argument that the publishers should get a cut of any resale monies might hold a small dribble of water. That is entirely not the case. A photocopied fiction book would hardly be readable, and would probably cost more to reproduce than a new copy. A scanned book would hardly be better. To think that the reader retains an exact copy in their mind is ludicrous. The number of people with perfect recall is vanishingly small. The number of people who buy a book and read it once is appallingly (to my my mind) large. (I don't like to buy books without the expectation that I'm going to want to keep the book.)

I would have gone utterly mad in my teenage years if not for used books. I need constant intellectual stimulation or I create my own, and not always in wholesome ways.

The thought of people throwing out unwanted books is a horrible one. I don't even like to throw out books that I didn't even like, because I'm sure that someone else would like it.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought that this might increase the likelihood of books being thrown away. Like you, I like to keep my books. Still, there was a time when I had more time for reading and not a whole lot of money and despite frequent trips to the library I also did a lot of book trading, because there was a store that would let me take home a used book for every two of the same price that I brought in. (That model hasn't been economically viable for a while.)

[azurelunatic]

Yes. We had a store that would give you store credit for used books brought in, about half the amount that they'd then sell them for, and they had a rule that trade credit could only be used for 90% of a purchase, so you would have to cough up a nominal amount of money when trading books, but it was usually something you could scrape up from the dregs of the allowance (in my case).

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

The store I frequented when my kids were little didn't even ask for that much, iirc (of course, that was a long time ago, so my memory may be faulty).

The only way I bought books new was to slip one in at the grocery store, which actually had an amazingly good selection--I've never seen its like in a non-book store, since.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Which just makes everything worse. I, too, wonder about library book sales. And library donations, for that matter. I used to be the librarian assigned to go through donations, to the tune of several hours a week just for my branch, and some of them got added to the collection, while most of them went to the library booksale. Library booksakes don't result in a huge amount of money, but they keep many, many Friends of the Library groups going. I can pretty much guarantee that having to come up with what amounts to a tax on books a library can sell at its booksale would do in the venerable, highly useful institutions that are Friends groups.

Someone ought to point out (broadcast, perhaps? loudly?) the anti-greenness of such a copyright change, as well. In the current political climate, that should sink it like a stone (sorry about the puns).

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we all shout together? 1, 2, 3: An extra fee on the sale of used books discourages the reuse of books and encourages the destruction of trees, without benefiting anyone.

It's sad to me to think that most of the book donations a library receives would go straight to the library book sale. Right now, I'm thinking of a certain donation recently made to the library here, with the intent and hope that the books would be placed on the shelves.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Most of the donations a library receives are either a) books the library already has multiple copies of, b) books that don't meet the library's needs (for a public library, these include old textbooks, outdated encyclopedias, and Reader's Digest Condensed Books, among others), or c) in bad enough physical condition that they're not worth the processing.

The only time I ever added more than 10% of a donation session to the library was when we got sixty boxes of books from a woman who was going into assisted living. Her boxes were full of mint-condition pictorials and natural history books from around the world (I envied her the traveling she must have done to acquire such a collection). Those boxes were like a combination of Christmas and Aladdin's cave, and I will never see their like again.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

It also depends upon the library. On discussing this with some friends of mine I learned that the policy of our local library is to accept only new books. Even out-of-print used books in mint condition on the "want list" are turned over to the local Friends of the Library organization to be resold, rather than added to the collection. *feels mystified*

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

That seems to be going a bit overboard IME, but perhaps they got burned by some used books in the past that appeared to be mint condition but which fell apart right after cataloging, or which had some sort of defacement that wasn't noticed until a patron pointed it out or something.

Who knows?

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Not me. But, as a patron, it leaves me feeling just a bit cheated.

[core-opsis.livejournal.com]

That really seems bizarre. Who is the world is going to give the library new books?

I find this whole discussion very upsetting (and want to know who I should write to about it). I spent my entire young-adulthood with a no-stepping-even-one-foot-into-bookstores (that sold new books). That was the only way I could keep to my budget. Libraries, books from thrift shops and garage sales had to do.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

You're right. I suspect that most book donations to libraries are used books from people's personal collections. There are, however, a few philanthropists out there, willing to give new books to libraries, including some authors who hang out here on LJ. Author Joshua Palmatier (jpsorrow) recently held a Spirit of Giving contest (http://jpsorrow.livejournal.com/172643.html) in which he asked his flist to help him gather donation information for their local libraries, to each of which he sent copies of The Skewed Throne and The Cracked Throne and, in at least one instance (his offer wasn't good enough for my persnickety library) two sets. In exchange for our helping him be generous, he held a random drawing from among those who got the contact information to him, the winner of which received a hardback set of the entire trilogy (which included the two books already mentioned, plus The Vacant Throne.

Some of the people I've spoken to about this have suggested that the possibility of such a fee holding up in court seems to be unlikely. I know they explained their reasoning (based on legal precedents, etc.), but those explanations didn't stick well enough for me to pass them along. Also, there will always be used books available as I don't imagine for a minute that it would have an effect on garage sales. As proposed, library sales are also excluded, so they would continue, and books more than two years old (the vast majority of used books) would still be excluded. But, I also find the proposal disturbing in a very Orwellian fashion, the kind of thing that acts as the toe in the door, and so I felt compelled to spread the word.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Oh. You asked who you should write to. At this point, I'm not sure what the best approach is. You could share the information in your journal or any other blogs you write. You could also post a comment to Matthew Wayne Selznick's post about this (http://www.mattselznick.com/blog/scribtotum/2008/12/30/novelists-inc-discourages-readers-from-discovering-authors-wants-to-cripple-used-book-sellers/). You could even contact Ninc () to express your opposition to their proposal.

Is it time to contact congressional leaders? Well, maybe not. When I ran a quick Google search (http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&client=pub-4099951843714863&cof=FORID%3A1%3BGL%3A1%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hyperwords.net%2F%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hyperwords.net%2Fhy-for-google.gif%3BLH%3A100%3BLW%3A100%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLP%3A1%3BLC%3A%230033cc%3BVLC%3A%23333333%3BGALT%3A%23999999%3B&q=%22Secondary+Sale%22+fee+US+legislation+%22used+books%22&btnG=Search) a few minutes ago, it turned up only a few references. It may be that this is one of those times when a few people make a bit of noise which is quickly dissipated without making any real change. In which case, maybe it's better to just keep an eye on the situation, rather than to keep the news active.