Melville House Books

One of London’s leading indie booksellers, Adam Powell of Crockatt and Powell Booksellers, notes that “Over the last few years the price of backlist titles has steadily increased.” In a post on the company’s blog, he says “Selling a copy of Animal Farm for £8.99 the other day I felt guilty for charging a good customer such a ridiculous price for a slim book.”

Well, it’s unclear why classics should be different from any other book — some would argue they’re of greater value than most of what’s published today, of course. That is, £8.99 for Orwell strikes this reader as completely fair, especially if it’s in a well-made edition, and especially in comparison to, say, twice that for Dan Brown.

But in any event, what’s behind the situation? Says Powell, “publishers are artificially inflating cover prices of the back list, the long tail to accommodate the book trade’s obsession with discounting and the appearance of a bargain.” But isn’t that like putting the cart before the horse? The “trade’s obsession” means the “retailers’ obsession” for discounting, which means the publisher was given litle choice. God knows we here at Melville House, at least, would like nothing better than an end to discounting, which would level the playing field for our natural colleagues, the indie retailers, a la Germany. But we don’t have that, and so the cover price is determined by the mad discounting of giant booksellers — i.e., not publishers nor indie booksellers either, which makes it something other than “artificial,” and something closer to “realistic.”

But perhaps that’s a matter of perspective. However, what’s not a matter of perspective, is that Powell goes on to misstate a matter of fact, and one that represents a widespread misperception about publishers. He says: “Internet sales suits publishers as they don’t have distribution costs and Waterstone’s returning core stock every 3 months to regulate their cash flow.”

In fact, publishers do indeed pay distribution costs on books sold via e-retailers, and what’s more, even Amazon returns books. And, as a publishing house struggling to keep its classics line priced at $10, I should also note that Amazon doesn’t usually discount our classics. Indeed, those distribution costs — which are fairly stable — are one reason we make less mark-up on our lower priced books (such as our inexpensive classics series) than we do on higher priced books … and one reason there aren’t a lot of publishers doing new low-priced classics lines (especially in luxe editions).

A solution to both our problems would seem to be a net price agreement — that is, a rule that the price of a book can’t be discounted (like the one they have in Germany — see the link above). Then, pricing would truly be driven by what the public will allow. Such a law seems indeed unthinkable in the raucous free market of the US, though. Even more sadly, is the fact that England had that very law … but threw it out a few years ago.

In the meantime, as the book business seems poised on the cusp of something new, when fixing or at least adjusting the model seems possible, it’s more important than ever that the natural alliance of indie booksellers and indie publishers, operate from a fuller understanding of each other. And wouldn’t it be lovely if we could start that better understanding with a discussion rooted in the selling of classic literature?

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.