Wall St was down 94 overnight, its biggest fall in a month, while the local market is down 66.
Parallel this: Top Ten book prices compared
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There’s been a book’s worth of words expended on discussion of the imminent decision by the Productivity Commission on parallel-importation of books into Australia. So this particular book-buying scientific geek decided to do what scientific geeks tend to do: check the actual real-world data. The first table lists the top ten books according to sales statistics (from The SMH 11 July 2009). This is the “indie” list because the best seller list is wall-to-wall Stephenie Meyer and I was not going to waste my time on that! Only two (as it happens the top two) in the list are Australian-published Australian authors:
This next table shows the actual prices as found in the last 48 hours in the main book chains in Australia, three smaller independent book stores (in Brisbane CBD*) and the two main online suppliers, Amazon-USA and Book Depository (UK). For the latter two the current RBA exchange rate was used and the shipping and per-order charge is added as shown (but these are still likely to be lower than actual final charges, see later):
Notes to Table:. a) All prices are AUD; b) Book details as per Table 1A; c) Borders discount price at 3-for-2 (all 3 at same label price) d) Myers special 35% discount e) Amazon includes shipping charge; “solo” indicates additional US$4.99 per shipment charge (not applied to multiple book purchase ie. “batch”); f) colour code: bright-green=best price, light-green=next best price, purple=worst price. The first claim about online always being the cheapest is rarely true. Breath by Tim Winton was $16.22 at Myer and $15.76 from Book Depository (BD). However, anyone who has made a credit card purchase requiring foreign exchange knows their credit card company/bank is not going to give them the best Forex rate, and will usually levy a transaction fee to boot. Second, recently published Australian authors are not always available outside Australia, and sure enough Chris Tsiolkos’s The Slap is not available from either source: BD does not have it while Amazon only has the hardback at A$68 (incl.shipping) although you can pre-order the paperback at A$25.40 (or A$31.74 if bought singly) apparently for delivery in 2010! Meanwhile, in Australia, most book stores have it for $32.95, although Borders (ANZ stores are now owned by A&R though currently operate independently) actually have it at $35.99 (winning the wooden spoon award, see the above table). The cheapest place to get it? I bought it from Myer about six weeks ago when they had it discounted 35% for $21.40! They still had it at this price this weekend. The lesson is to hunt around and you can usually get Australian authors at reasonable prices. If Myer stock it they would usually be the cheapest. I was told they have their Top 10 more or less permanently discounted. There is a separate discussion to be had on why they do this since independent bookstores — the ones most hurt by this discounting — are not their competitors, and books must represent 0.01% of Myer’s turnover. Are they not happy unless trying to kill all independent retailing in Australia as a matter of policy? Interestingly, while the small independents never had the absolutely cheapest, it was the majors who had all of the most expensive prices. Book buyers, do not assume the big chains are cheaper. For the other eight books on this list, even without the above caveats on the actual final cost of online purchases (more below) five were technically cheaper online-overseas though only three by a significant margin (#7, 9, 10). And the three from Amazon (#5, 9, 10) need to be purchased in a batch, not singly, to achieve the savings. Most likely several of these eight books are on the open market (as Garth Nix pointed out in the Lateline debate) and therefore other factors, not the parallel import laws, account for their higher price. As a last geeky point about this top ten list, I note that the only book on the list I consider to be brain-food (#10) is the most expensive! The bottom line is that the book market seems reasonably competitive in Australia and if you hunt around — with a tad of patience — you’ll find a good price without buying 10,000 kms away and crossing your fingers re your credit card. But speaking of long-distance purchasing, the below table shows a real life selection of books I am in the process of buying — admittedly a bit specialist but not obscure. The oldest is 1989 but most were first published less than four years ago. Most of these books are not available in local stores but the few that were (see “local” column in the below table) show the rather wild price differences even within Australia. None of these books are subject to parallel importation restrictions.
Notes to table: a). All prices are AUD; b). NA, Not available. c) Dymocks Online, not including postage which is complicated [eg. $10.50 for 3 or more books, to Qld] The real shocker is the difference between A&R (online prices incl. $2 postage) and either Amazon or BD. Almost an extra $300/78% more than Amazon and $250/83% more than BD. My experience is that Dymocks*** would give results comparable to A&R but they and Borders (online) do not stock most of these books. But BD enthusiasts (or any lazy bloggers** that can always find a cheaper price on the web) there is a mere $8.60 between Amazon-US and BD on this unselected set of 10 books. As a regular buyer (in batch purchases such as Table 2) I can attest that these Amazon prices**** are real. Regrettably I can also disclose that I do not own any shares in Amazon. Obviously these markups in Australian retail prices of non-Australian books is the huge price disparity everyone thinks of, BUT it has absolutely nothing to do with the argument over the parallel importation laws, which in my opinion should be retained — at the very least until the major English-language markets in the UK and USA agree to abolish their own restrictions. Anyone (Bob Carr, Allan Fels?) who thinks that books by Australian authors imported by the big book sellers from the USA or UK would be cheaper over the longer term would have to explain the massive disparity shown in Table 2. Unless they are in a parallel universe where the usual retailing laws do not apply. *Yes, for most Crikey readers, your CBD is bigger than my CBD so you should have an even bigger selection of retailers and better price competition, therefore my figures are a worst-case scenario. ** Only Amazon direct prices are used here because other Sellers hosted by Amazon incur higher postage and additional per-order charges for invariably single-book orders. To those rabid bloggers who always believe they find better online prices, please forward documentary evidence to boss@crikey.com.au, including proof of payment and actual delivery within Australia (not just a webpage from www.harbourbridgeforsale.com). ***I also dispute the claim made repeatedly by Don Grover, CEO of Dymocks, that their Hong Kong stores/customers benefit from the lack of regulation. Dymocks HK prices are not online but my strong recollection from many hours spent in their HK stores over the years, and many purchases (mostly books about HK not widely available elsewhere), is that his statement is hogwash. ****Note that Amazon (or BD?) does not include Australian GST and this gives them an unfair advantage — and as has been pointed out, the Australian government could readily insist on Amazon levying the tax because the American company already does it for other countries and some US states. Michael James is an Australian research scientist. These are the author’s personal opinions and do not represent the views of any organisation or institution with which he is affiliated. |
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21 Comments
I will often wander through Borders on my way to Big W. I find Big W has most books, including new releases, markedly discounted and certainly cheaper than Borders.
I think you have missed the point. Many Australian books have a longer sales life in Australia than overseas, and become remaindered in the USA after a year or two. Booksellers can buy these for less than $US 1 and sell them at full cost in Australia. The author receives no royalties when this happens, nor do the Australian publishers get their percentage of the royalties. At least one of my books has been remaindered in the USA and is being sold by one of the big book retailers at full Australian price here . I only noticed because the cover of the US edition is different from the Australian one. And this is happening when we still- theoretically- have protection.
Yes, I am worried about my future livelihood. Are you seriously suggesting that authors shouldn’t expect to be paid royalties for their books?
If you want a current bestseller then, no argument, you will get a better deal from a local shop. If you want anything else, even something that was a bestseller three years ago, then you will almost certainly find a better deal online overseas.
Can I also point out that the carry-on here about forex rates and fees is out-of-date. Amazon for one allows you to pay in oz dollars at honest rates of exchange and with no fees.
Note that the lazy or incapacitated amongst us perfer to order online so that the book, totally effortlessly, arrives in the post at a reasonable cost. Whenever I’ve checked the delivered-to-my door price for a book ordered locally is hugely more than the delivered Amazon price, and particularly so for anything out of the ordinary. But hey, thanks a zillion, Michael, for alerting me to the existence of Book Depository…until now I’ve only dealt with Amazon. I’ve just put in an order to Book Depository and it seems a very pleasant site to deal with.
I’m worried that the Productivity Commission has too narrow a brief. I agree with their conclusions prima facie, but I’d b be afraid that levels of concentration in bookselling will increase markedly as parallel imports drive down prices and require economies of scale to be developed locally to compete. Already A&R is Borders and vice-versa. And, once those levels of concentration are achieved a few years down the track we’ll end up with yet another oligopoly / duopoly like petrol, supermarkets, banking, air travel etc. which ends up gouging the public all because it can. And, while one might say “Overseas competition can always come in and keep them honest”, fact is that Australia’s too small a retail market to be of much interest to large overseas players. Why haven’t Carrefour moved in and bought Woolies or Coles? They can’t be bothered. Bigger fish to fry in China, that’s why.
Real risk in my view that the PC will deliver short term gain for long term pain.
To Jackie French (1.25pm): I’m on your side! But your point is absolutely correct and this (below) was my second para which, for whatever reasons, was edited out by Crikey. Do you note that Bernard K never mentions this issue? I might be more amenable to a true open and free market in the English speaking markets if the two biggest, UK and USA, did not have similar restrictions.
“Amongst several key points that some participants, letter writers and bloggers fail to grasp is that Australian authors do not receive any royalties on their books which are remaindered in the US or UK, and such books could be dumped on the Australian market at considerably cheaper prices because the UK/USA publisher has written them off (and the author’s standard contract allows/insists on this condition). American and British authors are protected against such action in their home markets.”
Jackie French, presumably you signed a contract licensing a US publisher to produce your books, and presumably you were paid an advance/for rights as part of that negotiation. The terms you agreed to presumably incorporated a remainder mechanism that would kick in at a certain time/under certain circumstances. Your overseas editions were remaindered. Can you tell us whether or not your actual sales of that book paid out your advance? If they didn’t - correct me if I am wrong - surely what you are complaining about is not receiving royalties on editions that are part of a print run for which you have actually already been paid-in-advance?
At best, if you did make your advance, surely what you are really anxious about is receiving no royalties for…well, books for which you contractually agreed to accept no royalties (as ‘remaindered’ copies), is that more or less right? If these were sold in the States you’d have no grounds for complaint. Disappointment, yes, but surely no writer goes into the States without a pretty fair understanding that remaindering there is a fairly brutal affair? I accept that the real problem is that a US copy sold here = a local copy (with royalties to you) not sold, but internet selling has exactly the same sales-robbing impact anyway.
Perhaps what the industry needs to do, rather than bleat for governments to hang onto stone age trade barriers against an oversupply of unwanted books from other markets - a futile task in this internet era anyway - is to throw out its current unworkable business models and ‘standard contracts’, especially with respect to managing remainders/surplus hard copy supply. Probably the kinds of contracts that writers sign need to start looking very different. (I’d be insisting on remainders being pulped, for starters.) If that’s ‘too hard’, then…well, don’t publish overseas editions at all. Set up your own website and export Australian copies, or do it electronically.
Look, I am aware that the publishers (and increasingly the big chains) have had a stranglehold on ‘the way the business works’ for decades. Boo hoo hoo. Being a writer makes you the sole arbiter of the way you choose to do business, especially in this era. You don’t have to sign anything, Jackie. Those overseas editions exist solely because you wanted to have a go on the industry’s old terms in the biggest English language market going. Good on you, and good luck to you. But the down-side of hard copy publishing’s - and optimistic/ambitious writers’ - desire to maximise market saturation and visibility is that, chances are, you’ll end up with lots of dead stock. Again, these are choices you and your industry make.
This issue isn’t really about PIR’s at all, it’s about what’s to become of hard copy oversupply more generally. It’s not up to governments to artificially protect your ‘best’ markets from the fruits of over-ambitious production/export into your other markets. It’s up to dead tree publishing to get its sh*t together when it comes to matching supply-and demand more efficiently, and especially to figure out - at long last - how it’s going to manage hard copy over-supply, in this rapidly digitalising era.
And I mean you personally no ill-will - and I am speaking generally here, not about your particulars - but frankly, it’s rich for writers to get bolshie about being paid for books that no-one ever buys. That often happens already, of course, in the form of the advance/rights sale system, which evolved precisely to take some of the speculative risk out of writing. Fair enough. But remainder mechanisms, for writerly better or worse, are equally a necessary part of the same remuneration structure (as it currently stands, at least), a realistic mercantile acknowledgment that there are zillions of books now in existence, lots more rolling through the system, retail shelf (or warehouse space) costs money, unmet advances are already a loss to be borne by the publisher, (as are the sale-or-return policy, by the retailer), margins are low anyway…so really, once a book has stopped selling, or if it never even made its advance, its author can’t expect to be indulged inside the ‘live’ commercial chain forever.
Hard copy words cost buckets, just by being. Now cyber-words…
The irony is that many of exactly the anxieties for writers arising from this issue can very probably be alleviated by intelligent proactive adaptation from the industry. Print-on-demand, say, or e-Book formats can pull off the kind of reach/availability trick, minus the down side, that no hard copy industry could ever have: multiple copies of every single writer’s entire back catalogue, hits and misses, big or small, sitting there waiting for drip-drip-drip orders, forever. As things stand, Jackie, PIR’s or not, at some point (unless you are a brand or it’s been a hit) most writers have always had to accept that a book is probably no longer a potential earner for them, realistically. But the digital era might just finally change this - if only publishers and writers would stop obsessing over anachronisms like PIR’s and turn inevitable change into a virtue, see the digital migration of words from paper to screens as a massive opportunity for industrial re-tooling and rejuvenation.
Jackie, one last thing, something everyone in this debate needs to keep in mind: no-one has a ‘right’ to make a living as writer. It’s an elite-educated workplace choice, even to try. And a blessing, if you’re good enough. I say good luck to everyone who does, and is. But you do have to be good enough to be…well, good enough, to earn a living telling stories. I think you know that anyway. Too many in this debate apparently don’t. Sadly, most of us - like me - aren’t good enough. But governments (and government policy) need to keep the hell out of determining who is…or there’s no point to any of us trying at all.
Best of wishes for your next books. Be happy to set straight on any ignorance I’ve revealed.
To David Sanderson (1.38pm): Are you really sure of that argument? Most Australian books into their second or third year tend to be quite reasonable prices. And as my table showed you really need to calculate the full delivered price of online purchases. Also, I really enjoy trolling through physical bookshops and am not going to abandon them for the sake of a few dollars in price. (The much bigger difference for books in my second list is another matter.)
Re the forex issue, I cannot remember if Amazon bills the credit card in AUD, but I seem to remember the local credit card company still hits you with a fee (for an international transaction). I only ever buy a batch of books to reduce such per-order fees to a minimum.
To Austin Adams (2.19pm): I haven’t used BD but am interested to see, because frankly their prices look hard to believe. But again, as I said above, I am not going to undermine my local bookstores for the sake of a few bucks. Even putting the Australian authors issue to one side, do you not care if bookstores disappear?
Michael, you can buy The Slap on BD in paperback (unfortunately out of stock at the moment)!!
I have always been able to get nearly every newly released book at Big W. Failing that, for a dollar or two more, Target. If that fails I go to E-Bay and usually get what I want at a good price.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
An Australian research scientist says
“If Myer stock it they would usually be the cheapest. I was told they have their Top 10 more or less permanently discounted.
There is a separate discussion to be had on why they do this since independent bookstores — the ones most hurt by this discounting — are not their competitors, and books must represent 0.01% of Myer’s turnover. Are they not happy unless trying to kill all independent retailing in Australia as a matter of policy?”
Another Australian research scientist (me) says
No Myer policy to kill anything!
As the 0.01% or 0.001% of Myers turnover suggests, psychology of marketing says grab the chance to be talked about as the ‘cheapest prices’ (as you did) if there is no earnings or profit sacrifice as the feeling spreads to other items.
Psychology, psychology, psychology is everything!
Michael James, it is not hard to check the facts - Amazon bills in Australian dollars and there are no forex charges of any kind, including bank charge (because how do you have a forex charge on an oz dollar transaction?).
I don’t see how it aids Australian bookshops to have prices that are considerably higher than Amazon (freight included). Surely the mooted changes would make the local booksellers more competitive. I do concede that large booksellers would benefit more than small ones but it is hard to see how bookselling can escape the trends towards scale and consolidation that are occurring in most industries.
Michael, I’m a 2-5 books-a-year person, based on reviews, word of mouth and the like. I do occasionally walk through bookshops and admire the offerings (Folio in Brisbane, in particular) and one side of me likes the fact that such bookstores exist, but I seldom buy, except for the odd Leunig or other coffee-table delight. I’m a mug punter that looks for the cheapest. To me, keeping huge inventories in a downtown or other bookshop so that I might like to wander through and, perhaps, pick something up is strangely anachronistic. When you ask, “…do you not care if your local bookstore disappears” the answer is, so long as I can get the book I want when I want it, no, I don’t. You see, I don’t buy from them, I just see them as decorations, albeit iconic tributes to the Great Western Tradition, but nothing more. By the way, my last book was James Boyle’s “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind”. I thoroughly recommend it.
What do you mean “The first claim about online always being the cheapest is rarely true.” Your own table shows that it is true more than 50% of the time, and certainly close enough to make chasing around looking at Australian prices less convenient.
And how do you get “Breath” from Myers with at a discount at $16.22 being a better deal than from the Book Depository at $15.76? It’s all very well to talk vaguely about credit card companies and transaction fees but if you feel that is the case you should include them in your table, rather than than reject your own figures.
Maybe Myer are able to offer books at lower prices because they are not as greedy as some of the large foreign owned book chains.
As authors and publishers of DIY Kits for some 35 years I can tell you that A & R, Borders and Dymocks require 60%+ to put a book on their shelves.
Myer and small locally owned bookshops are willing to accept a lower percentage.
We ourselves are lucky enough to be able to sell our books with our own online presence and can choose not to have to price our books up excessively just to make a small profit from our own publications. Most publishers of local authors would not have this option.
Austin (6.29pm), I don’t even understand why someone who buys a few books a year is responding to this argument. How does it matter to you (financially or culturally)? (I am not saying you do not have the right to comment.) And I strongly suspect you underestimate, despite your miserly book buying/reading, how much you might miss browsing great shops like Folio. You must be Gen X or Y? Are you happy with streets lined with nothing but the golden arches of American burger chains, or Woolies and Coles with wall-to-wall Stephanie Meyer?
It seems I am seriously out of touch with most Australians (many of these comments): you really are happy to sacrifice Australian authors, publishers and bookshops (like Folio and other small independents) for the sake of a few dollars. Or in Margaret Smyth’s case (9.58pm), 46 cents!
Finally before anyone else (“lazy bloggers” like David Sanderson, 4.58pm) claims great savings (or 46c) from looking at a screen—and I get the clear impression no one on this comments page has actually bought any of these books from Amazon let alone BD—I would like convincing evidence and quantitative data of those savings. ATTENTION ONLINE CHEAPSKATES: I purchased 13 books from Amazon last week for the on-screen price of AUD$349.40. Because of the way they divide shipments into smaller parcels, I was billed three separate times by Visa for the total on my Internet Visa account of $362.02 which is $12.62 more than the Amazon total. Now, until I get my mailed hard copy from Visa I cannot tell precisely where this difference lies. As I have repeatedly told you guys, this is not a surprise –and no big deal spread over 13 books. BUT, if it was a transaction fee for each international transaction (and David Sanderson it doesn’t matter if it is in AUD, it is the fact that it is being transferred to a bank outside Australia’s banking system that matters) that would make the fee about $4.20 each. So now there are only three books from BD that are cheaper than in Australia at differences of $2.54, $3.10 and $15.78 (Margaret I am not counting a fourth that is a whopping 18c cheaper—you are free to use your credit card for an online transaction to a UK company—or maybe Bermuda?—to save a nominal 18 cents, I won’t. Not to mention supporting British instead of Australian bookshops and publishers and your local community.)
When I am in Australia I actually always buy Australian books from independent bookshops because I believe in supporting them and enjoy browsing there. I was merely pointing out that the table you provided did not support your arguments. I travel enough that I have the luxury of buying books anywhere in the world (I am posting this from America), and have American and British credit cards as well as Australian ones so do not pay international transaction charges. I think you undermine your case by attacking personally those responding to your article.
Michael James response is quite disgraceful in its resort to abuse, emotive non-sequiturs and an inability to check simple facts. Firstly, I repeat that there are no bank charges if you pay Amazon in oz dollars. Amazon obviously has a local entity that accepts the payment. If you are foolish enough to choose to pay in $US then you obviously will incur charges but that is completely unnecessary.
Michael James has left completely unexplained exactly how the ban on parallel imports keeps Australian bookshops alive. Clearly, high local prices vis a vis overseas online prices only serves to damage local booksellers.
Crikey is ill-served by contributors like Michael James if they are unable to respond rationally to rational critiques of their views and prejudices.
Margaret (2.14pm). I am truly envious. But was the truth best served by counting a book that was a mere 46c (or 18c) cheaper online? Then worrying about other charges by your cc company or delivery (for the record I have never had a non-delivery of Amazon; I have no idea about BD and I didn’t get the impression any of the other bloggers on this page have either). Please pause and think a tad before making such a comment, that’s all, thanks.
I too am often very tempted by finding interesting books while browsing on my travels. When I am in NYC I could max out my credit card after spending the day at The Strand, the best book store in the world (not just because it is big but of course it is second hand with books you have never seen before, and cheap). But you must also know that books can be a bit of a trap when travelling. In 2007 when in Paris — not normally a source of book bargains — I chanced across one of those cute shops in rue Mazarine (you know, near rue de Buci in the 6eme, normally strictly window shopping for the likes of me, possibly not lucky you) and they were having a rare sale. A true sale with >75% off some serious books. So I think I bought two or three big format books. Then several weeks later, already somewhat cursing my impetuousness having to lug them around Europe, at Heathrow, Cathay Pacific got nasty with my luggage weight. I ended up paying about $80 for a mailed package (Cathay wanted several hundred bucks!). Of course it wasn’t just books that did it, but they are heavy suckers (a few bottles of St Emilion from my troll through that town in Bordeaux didn’t help).
But yesterday (quatorze Juillet) when I was leafing through one of those books (while watching the Tour de France on SBS2) the french edition of Arthus-Bertrand’s France from the Air, did I care?
I’m very much in the “Brain Food” category and a heavy consumer of books - the only book on your list that I have is Doidge’s. I mostly - especially lately - buy books originally published overseas. Hence, except on rare occasions when there is a decent Borders discount or something that has been remaindered, I order through Amazon, BD or elsewhere online. Otherwise the local price is at least double and often three times the individual “batch” price from O/S.
From my point of view the best thing that ever happened to CD’s in Australia was the abolition of the parallel import laws. Please do the same for books. I am staging a quiet boycott of local authors while I wait. I doubt they’ll notice. I should not be penalised with higher local prices for books written by overseas authors just to protect the self-serving locals.
We all know books may be bought online cheaper than here in Australia. That is not the issue with the PIR debate. Many of you believe that the lifting of the restrictions on parallel imports will drop the price of books in our shops. Well, there is no guarantee of this and the Productivity Commission in its report to the government admits it.
What most failed to notice in Jackie French’s comment was that the ‘major retailer’ which was selling the illegally imported remaindered copy of her book was doing so at ‘full Australian price’. That means that although the retailer purchased this book at bargain basement ‘retainered’ price, they failed to pass this saving on to the consumer.
The ‘Coalition for Cheaper Books’ which is made up of the multinationals: Target, Big W, Kmart and Dymocks have pushed for the lifting of the PIRs. There are no legal requirements for them to pass on any discounts to their customers. I certainly don’t trust that they will. And if that major retailer was prepared to break the PIR laws when selling Jackie’s book, what other laws might they like to break?
Coles and Woolies are already driving independent grocery stores and fuel outlets to the wall. Their intention is to do the same to the independent bookstores and then there will be no competition and book prices will be whatever they want to charge us.
NZ lifted it PIRs 10 years ago and yet books there are not cheaper. Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclarey NZ$25 versus here (identical book) A$21.95. The NZ Publishers Assn and the NZ Authors group both wrote submissions to the Productivity Commission calling to retain the PIRs in Australia, citing the decline in NZ authors being published and the NZ book market’s demise.
Jack wrote: “no-one has a ‘right’ to make a living as writer. It’s an elite-educated workplace choice, even to try.”
Who then will write? If books are not written, will they exist? This includes e-books. Will journalists be paid for writing newspaper articles? Will we have news at all? Will all TV be writer-free zones, where we rely on ad lib reality shows? Will all writing exist only so that we might ‘tweet’ each other in narcissistic status updates? Hmm.. a world without writers.