(BTW - only 6 titles will qualify. Don't ask me what happens to the rest ...)
Go on. Guess.
Did you come anywhere near the real figure?
It's £45,000, according to the Times.
Here's some more figures from the article to make you weep:
£45,000 For one book to appear in window and front-of-store displays, and in Waterstone’s national press and TV advertisement campaign
£25,000 To feature in a bay at front of store as a ‘gift book’ in its genre and be displayed at the till
£17,000 To be one of two titles promoted as the ‘offer of the week’ for one week in the run-up to Christmas
£7,000 To be displayed at front of store as a ‘paperback of the year’ and be mentioned in newspaper adverts.
£500 Price of an entry in Waterstone’s Christmas gift guide, complete with a bookseller review
As for the rest of us ...
Gissa quid for a cuppa tea, squire.
7 comments:
The word 'criminal' comes to mind.
I wonder how much authors pay ... Oh no that wasn't Waterstones... I was in a book shop where all the people who worked there had their recommendations up by the till. Would it be cynical to think that's all paid for too?
Of course, now that such arrangements are more or less out in the open, people prove their own stupidity by blindly following such 'recommendations'. "Let's see, the bookstore people think this is good, erm, I mean took a big bribe to shove it down my throat, so I guess I ought to buy it." Maybe Fiona Phillips will get to be a best selling author that way rrreeetttcccccchhhhh...
Publishers and bookstores...all businesses. Businesses seek to make profits. Is it "criminal"? It is if Waterstones are forcing people against their will. But they get away with it because publishers will pay up. The good old uneducated book buying public go along with it too. Change will only come when customers demand it. But we all know that joe public are so damned lazy and brainwashed these days, they'll rather pop into a nice glitzy Waterstones than walk that bit further to find an independent bookseller. It's readers and shoppers we need to target and educate.
But there's exclusive to booksellers here...music stores, supermarkets, electric retailers, all have done deals like this for years.
Excuse me dba lehane I'll walk the extra mile to an independant book seller and I don't buy the recommended best sellers from anywhere - point of principle at stake here. The point being I don't like being told want I 'want' to read I like to rout around and think what I want to read.
Nice one, Kath!
Check out this post
http://fictionbitch.blogspot.com/2007/07/price-of-retail.html
This is a quote from Anthony Cheetham of Quercus Books:
'There is a genuine level of exasperation and anxiety in the publishing industry that the booksellers have gone too far down this road. It’s the reader who loses because it’s throttling the distribution of a wider range of high-quality books and [perpetuating] the system whereby you plaster the entire country with copies of the same few books.'
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