4 ms·

Authors make money on new books. Second-hand is great and keeps a shop with books on the shelves in a neihbourhood but it won't build a distro chain for new wor

Authors make money on new books. Second-hand is great and keeps a shop with books on the shelves in a neihbourhood but it won't build a distro chain for new work. Perhaps some of these new outlets will order new for customers. UK: many second hand bookshops sell through Amazon and through Exlibris/ABE

cafard 11y ago
I don't think that it is generally a zero-sum competition, in the sense that every book purchased used means one not purchased new. Were I pinched for money, I might buy at friends of the library sales, I guess. But most of the books I buy used are either out of print or not easily ordered, and generally I wasn't thinking of buying them until I noticed them on the shelf. And a fair bit of what is on the shelves of the regular bookstore is not by living authors, is it? Just about chest level of the rightmost shelf of fiction at Kramerbooks you will see about a foot of the works of Evelyn Waugh, who died about fifty years ago.
- keithpeter 11y ago
  I'd certainly accept that there isn't a zero-sum game between living and dead authors or between new and second hand books. A quick scan of my own bookcases would make it impossible to argue otherwise. I'm hoping that the increase in the number of bookshops of any kind will increase the number of people who do buy new books by living authors as that is the way we keep authoring as a somewhat viable mode of making a living.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Second-hand is great and keeps a shop with books on the shelves in a neihbourhood but it won't build a distro chain for new work. Many primarily-second-hand-bookshops also carry new work, often focusing on either local or non-mainstream publishers. (Some bigger primarily-second-hand -- in terms of floor space -- bookshops also are what amounts to a very small new-bookshop, with popular new books -- in front of a larger second-hand shop.)
- keithpeter 11y ago
  Good for you. Especially if your new stock is locally written.

cafard 11y ago

I don't think that it is generally a zero-sum competition, in the sense that every book purchased used means one not purchased new. Were I pinched for money, I might buy at friends of the library sales, I guess. But most of the books I buy used are either out of print or not easily ordered, and generally I wasn't thinking of buying them until I noticed them on the shelf. And a fair bit of what is on the shelves of the regular bookstore is not by living authors, is it? Just about chest level of the rightmost shelf of fiction at Kramerbooks you will see about a foot of the works of Evelyn Waugh, who died about fifty years ago.

keithpeter 11y ago
I'd certainly accept that there isn't a zero-sum game between living and dead authors or between new and second hand books. A quick scan of my own bookcases would make it impossible to argue otherwise. I'm hoping that the increase in the number of bookshops of any kind will increase the number of people who do buy new books by living authors as that is the way we keep authoring as a somewhat viable mode of making a living.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Second-hand is great and keeps a shop with books on the shelves in a neihbourhood but it won't build a distro chain for new work. Many primarily-second-hand-bookshops also carry new work, often focusing on either local or non-mainstream publishers. (Some bigger primarily-second-hand -- in terms of floor space -- bookshops also are what amounts to a very small new-bookshop, with popular new books -- in front of a larger second-hand shop.)

keithpeter 11y ago
Good for you. Especially if your new stock is locally written.