(T) Amerikanen jaloers op onze vaste boekenprijs…
Tussen de grootste Amerikaanse retailketens, Walmart, Target en Amazon is een prijzenslag losgebarsten om kopers te lokken. Een tiental potentiële bestsellers wordt nu aangeboden voor 9 dollar, oftewel met kortingen van 50-75%. Dat is natuurlijk leuk voor de consument, maar voor de doorsnee boekhandel begint dit rampzalige trekken te vertonen, want het gaat juist om de titels waar zij hun omzet mee op peil zouden moeten houden.
Michael Hyatt – Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers – geeft in een blogpost van 26 oktober 2009 een opsomming van de schadelijke effecten van deze prijzenoorlog:
In my opinion, this strategy will prove damaging to publishers, authors, booksellers, mass retailers, and ultimately consumers.
Publishers. For right now, publishers are getting paid an amount equal to the customary discount for hardcover books. But no one in the industry I have spoken with expects this to last for long. Amazon, Walmart, and Target are systematically conditioning consumers to expect these lower prices. Eventually, these retailers will be in the position to force publishers to lower their retail prices.
Authors. If retail prices collapse, it will mean that royalties and advances will also fall. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that 10–15% of $9.00 is dramatically less than the same percentage of $25–35. Most authors have a difficult enough time making a living now. This will lower the income of all authors and force many to get out of the business altogether.
Booksellers. How can booksellers—who don’t carry blenders, throw-rugs, and groceries—compete with big box or online retailers who are willing to sell books at below-cost prices? Booksellers count on these same bestsellers to bring customers to their stores. Most are willing to discount the books and accept lower margins, but few are in a position to actually lose money on every sale. It is not a sustainable model.
Mass retailers. Ultimately, this focus on driving down the price of the best our industry has to offer will hurt everyone, even the mass retailers who started it. When publishers are forced to further reduce titles, or new authors just don’t have the same incentive to succeed, the pipeline of new book titles will dry up. Where will the next crop of new authors come from? Who will be the bestsellers of tomorrow? The mass retailers have had the luxury of being able to skim the cream off the publishing milk pail without investing in the process that creates the milk in the first place. In my opinion, they are about to kill the cow.
Consumers. Yes, lower prices are good for consumers—in the short run. But they are not good in the long run if authors and publishers are no longer willing to assume the risk of creating and producing the kind of quality and selection consumers currently enjoy.
- Natuurlijk wordt er nu volop gediscussieerd over hoe aan deze ontwikkelingen het hoofd te bieden. Aardig is dat daarbij steeds vaker gewezen wordt op het Europese systeem van vaste boekenprijzen. Terwijl dat hier steeds meer onder druk komt te staan, zien sommigen in Amerika het als een mogelijke oplossing om een gezonde boekencultuur in stand te houden.
