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Old 08-01-2011, 09:22 AM   #19
montsnmags
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neilmarr View Post
The difference between second-hand books and second-hand cars, etc, is that a second hand book can be on sale at extremely low cost within a few days while publisher and author are still trying hard to at least break even on a newly released work.

Books beyond that first flush of youth profit in second-hand sale from wider readership and promotional value, those sold second-hand while a book is fresh might well undermine the 'success' of a book's initial sales performance to detrimental effect by reducing the enthusiasm level of publisher and author to produce more new works.

Having said that, I am not at war with second-hand bookshops and certainly stand firmly behind the campaign to save libraries. However, there should be an informal decency limit on when a book can be fairly 'sold' as a pre-used product; a business in itself as opposed to fair lending and sharing, which is a basic right I support heartily. Neil
The point I was trying to make is that, as with your second paragraph's "might", we can make assumptions as to the consequences of a secondhand market, but they are just assumptions. There are obviously some differences with vehicles, perhaps fewer with computer games, but the differences don't negate the hypothesis.

That is to say, it is insufficient to presuppose what the consequence of the secondhand market is - new or old book - to an author or publisher. It is not unreasonable to hypothesize. But, as with my premised hypothesis, and yours, all cards fall on the data. Until then we are saying "It's common sense that..." or "Logicially, you'd think that..." and possibly falling at the first data analysis. As with the semi-example I gave, the premise behind that was that the creators/suppliers generally assumed that the secondhand market was "lost sales", when in fact a strong secondhand market was increasing first sales. Fighting that secondhand market would then be shooting oneself in the wallet.

Cheers,
Marc
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