--- Curt Purcell <
curtpurcell@hotmail.com> wrote:
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick King
> <abrasax93@...> wrote:
> >
> > If you put them
> > in wire, rotating racks in stores where comics
and
> > magazines are sold, in bus stations and
airports,
> etc;
> > if you put them around like the old
Dell
> Paperbacks,
> > and Gold Medal, and Ace, and Pyramid, you'd
sell a
> lot
> > more copies.
>
> Um, Patrick, I can't even remember the last time
I
> saw a wire spinner
> like the kind you're talking about. Certainly
not
> in this decade!
****************************** Yeah! And that's my point.
That was an effective way to sell paperbacks, a cheap, easy
to buy, easy to read format. Just because nobody's still
doing it does not mean it no longer will work. I think
commerce in the United States anyway, is suffering from too
much education. Nothing is designed to make a comfortable
profit. Everything is aimed at larger and progressively
larger profits until the buyers start saying, 'Wait a minute;
do I even want to buy this, never mind need to buy it.'
> The only books I ever see placed for impulse
buying
> these days are
> "inspirational." Blech--how depressing!
There are lots of "impulse" books in supermarkets, drug
stores, truck stops, and airport and bus stations. They just
all tend to be by the same publishers and they're romance
novels, romance disguised as mystery novels, or horror novel
knock-offs of Stephen King's style. Lately I've also seen a
lot of western stories making a come-back. None of them are
cheap. They're all priced around $10 which is not an impulse
price to me. If I look at a book and think, hey, that's an
exciting cover. Maybe this'd be a good read, then see it
costs 8.99 + tax, if I don't love the author or have some
sort of emotional investment in the book, that's a deal
killer. When a sandwich and a cup of coffee is $10 at a lunch
counter
(if you can find one!) another $10 for a book makes it a $20
lunch by yourself! In the old days, you'd pick up a 35 cent
book and maybe it was great, and maybe it was not very great
at all but you could learn a little something from every
writer. Today, if the book I read isn't GREAT, and a lot of
them are not, I feel absolutely ripped off after dropping ten
bucks on the thing. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking this
money thing in the US has got to stop. I really don't want to
spend my time struggling to make more and more money to pay
higher and higher entertainment costs. I hope it doesn't take
a depression to bring this thing back in a reasonable
direction.
Patrick King
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