Used book sales *do* encourage many readers to try new authors, and, often, those readers will gravitate toward buying new. I’m not going to pretend to get the ins and outs of economics, but I do know that price is a major factor when it comes to spending entertainment dollars. Quality is another. However, we need to acknowledge that the business model for buying and selling books has changed dramatically in the past ten years and will continue to change. One major change, of course, is that finding used books (including hard-to-find used titles) is becoming easier, and often, consumers don’t see or know there’s a different financial model for the authors and publishers when they choose to buy used.

My primary problem with the used book market is that, unlike many other forms of entertainment, there is only one shot at the royalty stream. Music has a used market, but also provides the opportunity for artists to collect royalties (and more) via radio, publishing, live appearances, and merchandising. Motion pictures, of course, have residuals and participations opportunities. Not every porject turns into retirement money, but you have the ability to make money over the long term.

Other countries have implemented various schemes to compensate artists for potential lost revenues due to piracy or home taping. I realize I’m a lone voice in the “taking this notion seriously” camp, but at some point, the volume of used sales is going to require that authors and publishers discuss ways to protect their business while still maintaining a valuable resource.

See this New York Times article

An economist would typically illustrate this with a graph, which is more more intuitive to grasp than my description. In effect one axis would have volume, the other price. A diagonal line represents the number of people willing to buy at a given price (noone will pay a million, a lotta people will buy for a dollar). The book is given a fixed price and everybody whose accepted price is above that fixed pint will buy, and no one who is below the fixed price will.

What the used book market allows for not only PURCHASES by people unwilling to pay the fixed price but SALES by people unwillling to pay the fixed price. The after market encourages the full price sales in the primary market.

One of thiese days I’d love to go into why in don’t think books are in fact too expensive but are simply priced in too fixed a manner, preventing the kinds of price discrimination that can help both producers and consumers, but I’ll spare all y’all that…