consider the lipstick
While we’re on the subject of the end of the world:
Why isn’t publishing recession-proof? A few months ago I think the conventional wisdom was that book publishing would do quite nicely in a recession. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
Why not? Consider the lipstick effect: it’s well-known that lipstick sales rise in a recession, because lipstick is the cheapest possible substitute for new shoes or clothes. Walmart and Costco and fast food similarly do well.
Books are cheap. Aren’t they? Not as cheap as watching TV, of course, or going for walks. And, yes, there’s a certain amount of resistance to the initial outlay on a book — books, if you’re bookish, are the kind of things that form strong and resonant memories, making you aware with unusually painful emotional intensity of how much more expensive they are now than they used to be when you were a child, when things were made sense.
But for dollar per hour of entertainment, books are almost as cheap as it gets. Certainly cheaper than going to the movies, or eating out, or most video games. George Orwell proved this mathematically seventy years ago in Books v. Cigarettes. Shouldn’t people be cutting back on movies and drinking and sitting at home with a book instead?
What’s wrong with this logic? Certainly there are publishing dorks here, and there must be a few economics dorks, and maybe even some intersection of the two. Explain.
IÂ promise to talk about something less depressing tomorrow.
December 2, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Well, seeing as you asked, from an economics point of view it is all a matter of substitution. Is a new lipstick a satisfactory substitute for new shoes? Quite possibly, unless your old shoes have a hole in them. Is a burger a substitute for a gourmet meal? Well, it fills you up. So, if a book an acceptable substitute for a movie? Can you read a book in the same time that you can see a movie? Can you snog your significant other while reading a book? Is microwave popcorn as good as what you get int he movie theater? Are books cool, or are they just things you were forced to read in school?
December 2, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Are books cool, or are they just things you were forced to read in school?
But I’m not assuming that people who previously didn’t like to read will start reading because it’s cheaper than going to a movie; only that people who previously liked both reading and movies might cut down on movies a little in favour of reading
at a certain level of abstraction books and movies and rollercoaster rides should all be substitutes for each other — they’re all entertainment, they all pass the time.
December 2, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Well then your problem changes significantly, because now you are not asking “why are people not stopping going to movies and reading books instead?”, you are asking “what proportion of people who go to movies find reading a book an acceptable cheap substitute?” And maybe that proportion is quite small.
But there are other issues potentially at play here too. For example, you have to ask whether the smart substitute for a movie is not buying a book, but re-reading a favorite book that you already own, or re-watching a favorite DVD at home. And it may be that there are other factors about the recession that affect the book trade in a negative way that outweigh any positive effects of movie substitution. Just because publishers are doing badly it doesn’t mean that book readers aren’t stopping going to movies.
December 2, 2008 at 8:44 pm
From an economics point of view, in this part of the world (New Zealand), a new book isn’t particularly cheap. Trade paperbacks are between $30-$40. By contrast, new DVDs start around $20. Then again, new console games are $100+ and they seem to be doing OK.
I don’t think the problem is the cost of books. I think it’s the diminishing pool of people who view reading as a superior substitute to time spent watching TV or playing games.
December 2, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Although – Lou Anders and Mark Chadbourn agree with you
http://pyrsf.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-there-silver-sfnal-lining-to.html
December 2, 2008 at 9:02 pm
The worst thing about iUniverse was the high price with which they hobbled my thin book. Now, take The New Weird – a big, thick volume chock-full-o-good writing and only $14.95, it only makes sense in these meager times.
People flocked to the movies during the Great Depression because movies only cost 25 cents.
What we need is a return of 50 cent pulp fiction magazines with a cover that grabs you while you’re buying a cup of coffee or a lottery ticket. Sell ‘em in mass, baby! And print letters to the editor, it gives people a stake in the magazine. Of course, you weren’t talking about magazines, Felix. You were talking about books. You should probably say something like, “Bill, I’m glad to see you are tackling my question with gusto, but I was talking about books, not magazines.” That way, see, you could let me down easy. Then again . . .
~ Modern Pirate Tales, issue # 1 ~
In This Issue: Keelhaul Budreau Kicks Ass!
Special Report: The Squid Connection
December 2, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Bill,
I would buy a lifetime subscription to any magazine with ‘Pirate Tales’ in the name.
Except ‘True pirate tales of accounting and HR’ of course.
December 2, 2008 at 9:30 pm
True pirate tales of accounting and HR:
Part I
Part II
December 2, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I would like to believe the Chadborne/Anders thesis, though it seems that his sample is a bit small to so confidently assert that SF always does well in bad times — basically the 30s and the 70s — plus when I think of an archetypal 30s SF/pulp/weird fiction writer, I think of a guy with malnutrition and a crooked spine living in a tin shack and dying at the age of 41 of a mysterious lung disease.
December 2, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Felix,
That’s just a hackneyed stereotype of pulp writers. Howard, for example, lived in a house with a shingle roof and died at 30.
December 3, 2008 at 3:08 am
A book is a much better buy than a film. In times of general starvation books should do well. Especially those that incite the masses to revolt. They should only cost a dollar and be printed on bad paper. Not made to last. No one will care anyhow. It is all about making money, isn’t it?
December 3, 2008 at 4:28 am
Books are cheap [if you don't live in Australia].
fixt
December 3, 2008 at 7:16 am
Don’t forget that books can always be burnt for warmth or torn up to make a toilet paper substitute if times get really hard which is a definite advantage as anyone who’s tried wiping their bottom with a razor sharp shard of dvd will know.
December 3, 2008 at 8:50 am
I was doing marvelous until there’s a certain amount of resistance to the initial outlay on a book — books, if you’re bookish, are the kind of things that form strong and resonant memories, making you aware with unusually painful emotional intensity of how much more expensive they are now than they used to be when you were a child, when things were made sense and I realized I had, quite unexpectedly, become my father. Granted, as a former smoker I chided myself almost at once for my momentary dismay at paying $8 for a paperback–as you point out, comparatively a new book isn’t very much at all. I also willingly plop down large chunks of currency for small press, hard covers, special limited whatsit chappies, etc. but that disconnect between what a mass produced paperback (not even a trade!) “should” cost and what it does will give me that old twinge. And I’m not even thirty, so I don’t know how you codgers manage to justify spending money on anything other than more cans of food and cats.
Damn, that last came off way more ageist than I intended. Seriously, some of my best friends are older than thirty…Hell, my parents are over thirty, so, you know, it’s not really…
I’m so sorry.
December 3, 2008 at 9:00 am
no it’s true
once you hit thirty, pretty much all your discretionary income goes to cans of cats
December 3, 2008 at 9:14 am
Benedict makes a good point about the versatility of books. Also, the thin pages from those little New Testaments make great rolling papers. For when you’re standing around a fire in a barrel drinking cheap wine.
December 3, 2008 at 10:42 am
I guess I’m not entirely convinced. I know writery-types (like most thinking people) are apt to wring their hands and fear the worst, but the fact is that total book sales in this country has gone up every year and not down. Sure, fewer americans report actually reading their purchases, but they still buy them. I remember my dad commenting that when he was growing up in north Minneapolis in the sixties, there were only two places to get books: the drugstore and the library. The library was only open two days a week and the drugstore never had more than fifteen titles at a time (and six comics).
I think the biggest impact on writers and booksellers is not the dip in book sales, but the fact that people are getting their books from Wal-mart and Target and other unwashed maws of consumerist hell. So the question becomes this: if most people start getting their books from walmart, will the walmart-effect rest its foul stink on the writers of books as well? Will books be written and bound in the same way that our crappy dvd players are fabricated – in some half-rotten factory in a jungle somewhere by the bone-tired fingers of enslaved children working off their parents’ debt?
Personally, I think that when everyone stops fussing about their nonexistent retirement account and whatever, I think they’ll probably notice the positive behavior-changes that result from adverse situations. Gas prices spiked and people drove less – and they still drive less, even now that the price went down. Why? Because they were able to see the benefits of a behavior change. Now, the economy stinks, and they’re buying less. This is good, people. Cuz Americans buy too much worthless crap that just ends up in landfills anyway.
I think the question is not “what’ll we do when folks buy less books?”. Instead we should be asking ourselves what books ARE we buying? Do our tastes change when the economy tanks? What books to people turn to when their factory closes and their farm goes under and their industry contracts or whatever?
Mostly, I’m wondering this: which book will be this generation’s Grapes of Wrath, and which musician will be the next Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie? Thoughts?
December 3, 2008 at 12:38 pm
What Kelly said!
Yes.
December 3, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The next Woodie Guthrie? Probably he will be Korean and really tell things like they are. I am not sure the ol’ US is capable of turning out a Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie. Not at the moment anyhow.
December 3, 2008 at 2:34 pm
One word: libraries.
December 3, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Well, the US did turn out a Bob Dylan and (to a much lesser extent) a Bruce Springsteen, so there is some hope there. That being said, I’m blessed it seems with the willingness to spend over $25 on shipping costs to get certain items I want from Spain…
December 3, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I think what Brendan means is, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan came along at just the right times for the U.S. and we may never capture moments like that again, whereas, maybe in Korea, their time is approaching. Or something.
December 3, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Yeah, that is what I meant Bill. The US has turned out a lot of good stuff. But maybe the next thing is for someone else to take on the mantle of breaking new ground. Africans. Koreans. Who knows? Things always come from where one least expect them. Certainly as far as cinema goes, the US has relinqued or is close to relinquishing their superiority. And if South Korea can just manage to pull off a few more good years, they will firmly be in 1st place. I have also heard their is some good fantasy fiction being written their.
December 3, 2008 at 5:38 pm
there is some tah tah. I am really bad at writing, no?
December 4, 2008 at 1:09 am
While American might not be buying fewer books, that doesn’t seem to be stopping publishers from hiding their dollars in the mattress. Random House is having big problems, people stepping down, “reorganization”. One of the big textbook publishers is laying off workers. Simon & Schuster is doing the same.
I doubt they’d be doing these things if they were pulling in the same amount of money as they were.
Sure, books are cheap, relatively speaking. But if you’re feeling on the edge of disaster, poor, if you really ARE out of work, if you feel like you should be saving everything you can, are you going to spend $8 on a book you’re only going to read once?
Do you NEED it?
I don’t. Even at $8, I tend to balk at the price of a book, partly because I can get them free online, partly because I have 30 books sitting around that I haven’t read, which I bought in times of plenty because I liked the cover and who the hell cares if I spent the money on books.
I think most people consider their cable bill to be an essential item. It isn’t, but it’s just one of those bills that you pay every month, like the electricity. That doesn’t make it free, not really, but it probably feels that way because it’s part of “the things you have to do”. It’s not one of the items in the “optional” column. So by comparison, books are an added expense. TV is what you have available when you pay the bills.
How have movies that are not Twilight doing? I haven’t honestly looked. I would expect viewership to be down from this time last year. But I suppose one also has to consider that teens make up a huge portion of moviegoers, and they are probably less likely to be affected by layoffs and downsizing. The kinds of jobs they have aren’t going to go away, and if they’re working off allowances, they’re probably still getting them. So maybe viewership isn’t hugely affected?
Whether we like it or not, no one actually needs a book. Not like they need food. Or a car. And I think many books are bought as a result of “browse a bookstore when bored and impulse buy something interesting”. Shoppers feeling the pinch likely control those impulses first.
December 4, 2008 at 8:33 am
magess, i like that answer
i mean i don’t like it but it’s very persuasive
December 4, 2008 at 9:37 am
I don’t like it either. It means I’m not very likely to get hired anytime soon. :-P