If you are at all familiar with BookFinder.com you probably know all about our annual BookFinder.com Report which tracks the demand of the 100 most sought-after titles which are no longer in print in the United States. The list differs from year to year as trends change and books get republished (Indie publishers take note, there may be a hidden gem in the list for you.) This list is no different as number of titles from last year’s report have been republished in the past twelve months including The Sixteenth Round: from Number 1 Contender to #45472 by Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Old Southern Apples by Creighton Lee Calhoun and Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore, leaving room for some new additions.
In fact Alice Starmore, a superstar in the knitting world, took her own spot on the list. Aran Knitting lived on the BookFinder.com report for years before getting re-published in 2010 and now another one of her works, Tudor Roses, has jumped onto the list to take its place. Tudor Roses is interesting because it includes a number of sweater designs inspired by the Tudor royals (eg. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) and their over-the-top gold embroidery, velvet, jewels and lace.
Current events also have an impact on the list. In A Payroll to Meet, David Whitford discusses the incidents surrounding Southern Methodist University's (SMU) receiving the "death penalty" from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); which involves banning the school from competing in a sport for a year or more (two in SMU's case). This book has been out-of-print since 1989 but scandal in college football has never been more in vogue. The recent rash of cheating, bribing and recruitment scandals to hit Ohio State, Southern Cal, Auburn, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, LSU, and the Hurricanes in Miami have renewed the interest in the grandfather of college football scandal. I somehow doubt this book will see reprint but it’s always interesting to well researched books jump back into the spotlight because of current events.
View all 100 books in the 2011 BookFinder.com Report
This post was writen by Guy Weller of Mr. Pickwick’s Fine Old Books.
This latest fee increase by ABE is ridiculous - I would have been far happier to see them increase their monthly rentals than applying this absurd sort of hit on the shipping component.
A great many sellers will increase their shipping charges at ABE, which will have the inevitable effect of costing some sales which climb through the buyer barrier of resistance, and any such lost sale costs ABE 8% of the book price + 5.5% across book and shipping combined on their credit card skim.
The average sale at ABE is around $US 13 and I guess the average shipping component would be about $US 5 or so. So on each $18 combined sale ABE currently reaps $1.04 + $0.99 in c/card fees at 5.5% or $2.03 (which is 15.62% of original book price).
Under this new scale the respective amounts will be $1.44 + $0.99 or $2.43 (or 18.69% of original book price).
Many booksellers will increase their shipping charges to compensate, and this price increase to customers must inevitably cost some sales, as the shipping climbs through the buyer resistance level.
I am not suggesting that buyers will abandon the site in droves, but look at the math:
For every sale at the average price lost due to increased shipping costs (and there will be SOME of these) ABE loses the $2.03 it would have netted had that sale proceeded.
It makes a mere extra $0.40 from each (average) sale processed under the new scale, and would need to “hold” 6 sales for every sale lost due to buyer shipping resistance before it actually made a revenue gain of $0.37 across the 6 x $18 = $108 gross revenue.
Obviously ABE will not lose 1 sale out of 7 (14%) due to this move, but it will lose SOME, and the anticipated revenue increases will therefore turn out to be in a significant part illusory for this reason, since each sale lost negates the next 6 made in terms of potential increased revenue.
In online planning, it is madness to increase shipping charges - you are MUCH better off running with a slightly higher price and lesser (or even “free”) shipping charges.
In fixed-store retail planning, it works the other way around - all the focus there is on the “advertised price” and very little on the half-hidden extras like delivery, installation, paid-for extended warranties etc.
ABE goofed when it introduced the c/c 5.5% (note that they are now actually reducing that on $500+ orders in partial recognition of this mistake).
They SHOULD have increased the commission then to 10% and introduced MAPS at 3.5%, which would have been a much easier “sell” to booksellers, and given them a much stronger income bedrock.
I don’t mind the idea of a corporation looking to fee increases to fund its growth, nor the prospect that the shareholders of a corporation deserve a decent return on the capital they have invested in infrastructure and providing the services on which we all to some extent depend.
I DO object to half-witted strikes in the WRONG fee areas, which this one is.
Shipping rates can be looked up on the Internet from most countries, and often are by our bookbuying customers to make sure we are not “rorting” them with extra loadings in that area.
Already I have to pay ABE’s blasted 5.5% on my c/card component of shipping, or 4% more than I was previously paying my provider.
Now I am hit with an extra 8% “fee” on this shipping - 12% loading in all on the publicly advertised and easily accessed postal charge (about $25 from Australia to the UK for an average book).
If I pass this on in full to my customers, it will not be long before some of them start querying why I am “loading” the postal costs so excessively, and they will be most dubious if I tell them that I am actually being taxed on this supply cost via my listing site.
They will conclude I am just taking a skim for myself - I would conclude the same thing myself if I were buying at ABE, and not in possession of the facts.
So this move is technically, philosophically and practically bad for ABE, and for all those who list there.
Higher costs and fees from ABE? I can live with that.
Ramping shipping costs to customers higher?
Strategic madness.
Cheers,
Guy Weller
Mr. Pickwick’s Fine Old Books
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