Re: Fiddling with Bookstore Displays

In article <1vk8a29g6lvfbqo7beud9cck0hh3jtvohj@xxxxxxx>,
Alma Hromic Deckert <anghara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Okay, last go-round. really.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:20:31 -0700, David Friedman
<ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <0ji8a2t0dtptku8n6ar1ibq179fdlm3ddr@xxxxxxx>,
Alma Hromic Deckert <anghara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


A good deal of the heat in these exchanges seems to come from one side
trying to generalize principles and the other trying to compare costs.
From the standpoint of principles, it is closer--because in my cases,
but not yours, someone is deliberately rearranging things in order to
achieve his purposes.

Newsflash - libraries and bookstores have only one common point - they
both involve books. HOWEVER - there is only one, possibly two or three
depending on the popularity of the volume, copy or copies of a book in
a given library. There is no such thing as a "bestseller table",
although some libraries have taken to putting the latest and hottest
hardcovers on a special shelf where they can be taken out for a
premium extra fee and kept out for a shorter time, as it were.

Which is what I described as "a bestseller table or equivalent."

However, and this is a big however, this is usually a table or a shelf
which is separate from the main library proper (from which you can
take out any book with just a card and don't have to pay an extra four
bucks or whatever it is these days for the privilege). Moving your
book from the stacks to this table is the general equivalent of taking
your book from the shelf in the store and placing it on the bestseller
plinth at the front fo the store. It would not belong there,, and that
would be painfully obvious. WHich is not what anyone here was saying
about facing out books on the shelves without removing same from their
position. Why is this simple comparison so utterly difficult for you
to accept?

I think I answered that in the first paragraph quoted above. Because
that's a difference of magnitude and not of kind.

Stealing a thousand dollars is bad. So is stealing one dollar--although
not as bad. The principle is the same, the difference is the magnitude.

Seen from my side, the exchange above consists of my arguing that a
certain sort of behavior is bad and your saying "but I did less of it
than in your example." To me, how much of it you did is relevant to how
bad it is--but it doesn't go from "something one shouldn't to to people"
to "something perfectly legitimate" just because you did somewhat less
of it.

Or in other words, do you agree that moving your book to the best seller
table of the bookstore--assuming it wasn't there already--would be
wrong? That's separate from the question of whether it would work. If
you don't agree, then why do you keep objecting to my analogies? If you
do agree, then where is the difference in kind, as opposed to degree,
between moving your book to the best seller table and facing it out?

But
the point is that the author gets nothing FURTHER out of that
arrangement - ONE copy, or in the case of the latest hottest
hardcovers maybe FOUR copies, of the book is already in the library.

The author gets more people reading his book, which many authors
consider a good thing.

It is, indeed. There are four copies of "Jin shei" in the local
library. They are mostly always out on loan. This gives me the warm
fuzzies. But I would not march into the library and demand that they
put the book on a pedestal with a celestial light playing upon it
because they have seen it constantly going out the door over the last
two years or so. The possible benefit to me might be that someone,
having taken the book out of the library, liked it so much that they
went out and bought their own copy - and in that particular instance
it was the availability of the book in the library which acted as the
equivalent of facing the book out on bookstore shelves - it was a
sample, it was a come-hither, it was an enticement-to-own. And yes, I
love the idea that people are constantly and consistently taking the
book out. I've had one person email me saying that they read the book
in their library first and then bought four copies for presents on the
occasion of that year's Christmas. Being read is a GREAT thing. What
was your point, again?

My point was that your statement that "the author gets nothing FURTHER
out of that arrangement" was false, as you have just demonstrated. The
author get benefits, whether good feelings or sales, out of having more
people read the book. The rearrangement I described was intended to get
more people to read the book.

There is very little reason for the other patrons to push heavy
borrowing of that book (it might, if it's heavy enough, result in
perhaps one other copy being bought by the branch to alleviate wear
and tear). It does NOT put any money into the author's pockets - other
than, in some countries, programs where a royalty-type arrangement is
in place depending on the number of times the book is borrowed in a
given year or so. In other words, it's a non-analogy once again.

Only if you insist that money is the only thing that matters. Since I
don't see money as any more important than other things humans care
about, I regard that as a very odd attitude.

<blink>

We were talking of bookselling, were we not?...

Among other things. Most recently about libraries.

My book - and yours, for that matter - was PUBLISHED. Its publication
only matters in the long run if the published book finds READERS. The
money is immaterial when compared to the issue that your books, face
out on the shelves, attract READERS. The money's the cherry on top,
not the issue - how many people do you even know, for the love of god,
who EVER earn out their advances in any significant way? But what
copies get sold count towards the NEXT contract, the NEXT book. You
may be perfectly happy with just having written your one, and are
ready to quit now - *but I am not*. I have lots more books to write.
And if turning a single book face-out in a single bookstore gets me a
single extra reader - who may then tell other potential readers about
me - that makes a difference. Forget the money. It makes a DIFFERENCE.

Precisely. And you are now supporting my side of the argument, although
you don't seem to have noticed. You earlier argued that rearranging the
books in the library so that an author's book got more attention didn't
matter, since "the author gets nothing FURTHER out of that arrangement -
ONE copy, or in the case of the latest hottest hardcovers maybe FOUR
copies, of the book is already in the library." You have now just
explained, passionately, what I already knew--that the author does get
something further out of having more people read the book. The only
reason I could see why that wasn't obvious to you when you wrote what I
just quoted was that you were thinking in terms of money--imagining that
the only benefit to the author was the money from the books the library
bought.

Anyone who wants to continue the discussion can leave
a comment on the blog.

I suggest that you may want to include a link to the discussion here, so
that people get to read all sides of the argument.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

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