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by chestnut-tree
4232 days ago
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"...the profits of bestsellers are being used to cross-subsidize new books and new authors" The publishing market seems to vary quite a bit country-by-country judging by the comments here. In the UK, we also had an agreement between publishers and booksellers called the Net Book Agreement [1] which set fixed book prices. The original defence of the agreement was that it subsidised important but less popular works. The Agreement was scrapped in 1997. What effect did that have on the publishing market? For a start, discounts by online retailers and even supermarkets have altered people's expectations of book pricing. Most people simply don't expect to pay full price for new titles anymore. Many independent bookshops can't compete on price and have closed. However, the number (and variety) of books published hasn't declined - quite the opposite: new and revised titles have grown substantially according to the Guardian report below [2]. But some publishers feel there are too many titles being published and the volume isn't sustainable. Books, magazines and newspapers are exempt from VAT in the UK. However, e-books are subject to full (UK) VAT rate of 20%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement [2] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/uk-publishes-mo... |
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