At the end of the line
So were you in the queue? My daughter was. The legal wranglings and climbdowns are all memories and for Seth, the book is now a souvenir, and no longer for secrets:
“Five hundred year old technology (books) is just too slow for the Net.
The act of printing, storing and shipping millions of books takes too
long for a secret to ever be in a book again. …“Holding and owning the book, remembering when and how you got it… that’s what you’re paying for.”
But is would seem that for traditional book sellers there is little profit either. Waterstone’s had to add value by “creating theatre”, and it seems that some independent stores are more likely to buy their stocks from the supermarkets who are treating it as a lost leader. For example, at Tescos if you spend £50 on groceries, you can get
the last Harry Potter book for only £5. Even Amazon, who took 1.6
million pre-orders won’t make a profit at the sale price of £8.99.
So is the internet to blame for this? Probably not. Technology enables people to either work or play in new or different ways. All it has done is provide a swifter and more efficient way to spread rumour or story. The appetite for that rumour or story has always been there.
Image credit: Aurelien Guichard
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July 22nd, 2007 at 2:11 am
What it means is that the “blockbusters” (in whatever media) will be sold by the people with the buying power and the customers to sell lots very quickly.
The smaller, specialist retailers can’t compete with this. But there will never be many blockbusters. The specialists will need to compete by offering expertise and ways of going beyond the blockbuster.
The internet hasn’t changed this. It’s the buying power of the supermarkets. You could argue that there is a power law at work here. Just as there are a few dominant websites which everyone knows about, there will always need to be the smaller “independents” which go beyond what the dominant suppliers can offer.
July 22nd, 2007 at 2:13 am
BTW. We paid £4.99 for our copy - from Morrisons, with no conditions.