Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Aidan Kehoe Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Re: World Book Day (22 April) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 18:30:45 +0100 Lines: 28 Message-ID: <87v845l58a.fsf@parhasard.net> References: <878r12lzhg.fsf@parhasard.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net huhuk53wFmchCg/XpctgHgynHaQR+SvDa6X246oNBCLPnaaiDk Cancel-Lock: sha1:+VR46ToXtmD+Q9X6fjzrflC8gAo= sha1:YEdORhOTcF/ahj5LNywyf23BM9U= sha256:jlmTziIHpue8U7Pu1OAd+Zf9cwNBYT5Yt6t1ge6jkfc= User-Agent: Gnus/5.101 (Gnus v5.10.10) XEmacs/21.5-b35 (Linux-aarch64) Bytes: 2387 Ar an cúigiú lá is fiche de mí Aibreán, scríobh Christian Weisgerber: > On 2024-04-25, Aidan Kehoe wrote: > > > There has been a bit of coverage lately in the bits of the web that I read > > of the really minimal sales of most books (in the US, because that’s where > > [a^H] an antitrust case revealed the details). It’s a fascinating picture, > > quite a hit-driven economy, lots of money lost on loads of books. > > The argument that bestsellers subsidize the availability of a larger > variety of books comes up regularly in debates about fixed book > price laws, which exist in a number of Continental European and > other countries. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price#/media/File:Countries-with-a-Fixed-Book-Price-Agreement.svg Part of the argument in the Wikipedia article is that well-stocked bookshops are important for cultural life, and that’s something that’s less important with good online sources for books. Certainly if I had been attempting to source John Perry’s Tajik Persian Reference Grammar in the 1990s (assuming it had been published then) living in Dublin, I strongly suspect I would never have been able to source it at all. Whereas currently (and in 2006ish) it’s just a matter of throwing enough money at the problem. -- ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out / How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’ (C. Moore)