Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Another item of concern is the racks and racks of spinoff kitsch you see spawning around every popular juvenile series. Harry Potter stuff. Twilight stuff. You name it, there's stuff for it. Why is this a bad thing? Simple: You have a parent and child in a bookstore. You've gotten them through the doors. The child could beg that parent to buy him a book ... or a stuffed Snitch. Every dollar spent in a bookstore on licensed items is a dollar taken away from buying books. And reading, like smoking, is an addiction which is easiest to develop in the young. You'll find very few (if any) avid readers and book-buyers who were not avid readers as children. The more that child who is standing in front of the Twilight kitsch display reads when young, the more likely he or she is to become a lifetime book addict. Or, in short, a customer. The publishing industry (with a heavy emphasis on authors who are easily seduced by the "free money" of licensing fees) is cannibalizing their own future by persuading their customers to spend their bookstore budget on non-book items which do not encourage them to become long-term customers.
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I agree with most of what you say - but not sure I agree with this part. In this example, kid gets a toy - often kids get toys I believe, so if they have one that has contributed to making authors, publishers and bookstores money I don't think that will automatically be a negative.
Another example - I have been wondering why for example for popular authors - but not necessarily Harry Potter popular - don't have t-shirts etc.
There are a lot of cool pictures on the front of SF and Fantasy books for example. (not so much for garden variety thrillers or whatever that have a big fat author name and blurry indistinct photo of bugger all).
But take Alastair Reynolds and the cool spaceships on black on those covers, or a dragon on a popular fantasy novel.
A t-shirt or poster of those - wouldn't sell enough to be worth it? Art would cost to much to use?
Apart from the example though, people need clothes, and have 'poster budgets' that are separate from book budgets I think. Granted every dollar spent on something else is not spent on books.
For something massively more popular than either of the books mentioned - don't think sales of Spider-Man stuff or Batman, Superman, X-Men etc. changes the reading material purchase amounts much?