Economic perspective/value

Questions

1. Sharing of value and information how is this done by books?
2. How do books (or knowledge) offer power to readers?
3. Price difference of books around the world?
4. How much influence do books and perspective have on the economy of countries?
5. How many copies are sold of a book in average book?

Discussion

Price difference of books around the world?

Average book prices in the US as of 2002

• Adult hardcover book $27.52
• Adult fiction $25.05
• Adult non-fiction $28.60
• Adult paperbacks $15.77
• Adult mass market $7.30
• Juvenile hardcover book $15.93
• University press hardcover $51.09

Price wars in the UK

Independent bookshops are complaining about the fact that large supermarkets are selling books at a discount because they are bulk buyers. Eventually this would lead to:

• Disappearance of independent bookshops
• Only a limited range of books would be available

Price differents on the UK market for 2006

For example the non-fiction paperback, Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?

At Oldfield Park Bookshop in Bath, for instance, it is on sale at its recommended retail price of £7.99. At Foyles it can be bought for £5.99, and at the Peak Bookshop in Chesterfield for £4.39. Meanwhile, outside the independent sector there are greater savings at Amazon £3.99 and Tesco £3.89.

USA publishing industry statistics 2002-2005

How much influence do books and perspective have on the economy of countries?

Knowledge sharing

Knowledge sharing can't exist in developing countries without funding because of the fact that nor the libraries or the people can afford to buy books or journals. In the spring of 1992 a new cooperative organisation called the Intemational Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) was set up. It aims to support and strengthen existing programmes involved in the publication, distribution, exchange, and donation of books, joumals, and related materials and to encourage new initiatives that will increase the availability of quality scientific literature.

Publishers

Many medical publishers send journals to institutions and individual doctors in poorer countries. For instance the New England Journal of Medicine has been sending around 500 free subscriptions to eastern Europe for the past four or five years. The journal hired a consultant to visit academics in Poland, Hungary, Romania, the former Czechoslovakia, and the former Soviet Union and draw up a list of suitable recipients. This scheme partly satisfies the NE7M's overall mission to inform and educate, and it also makes sound commercial sense-at least some of the current recipients of free journals will be willing to pay for their subscriptions when their countries' economies improve.

Books

The British government's Overseas Development Administration subsidises publishers to provide a special selection of undergraduate and postgraduate textbooks through the Educational Low-Priced Books Scheme (ELBS). The books cover business studies, education, engineering and technology, law, medicine, nursing, and science and cost between a third and a fifth of the cheapest standard paperback editions available in Britain. Despite being cheap, the low price editions are complete and unabridged and are of the same material quality as the British editions. They are up to dateonly new publications or those with new editions in the past five years are included in the scheme. And they are relevant, being chosen by academic advisers around the world. The books are distributed to 54 developing countries and are available from appointed local stocklists and British exporting wholesalers and retailers.

Electronic data

In 1991 Carol Priestley was commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat to explore the possibility of setting up a coordinated programme of information sharing within the Commonwealth. As part of her remit she surveyed 112 universities, libraries, and academic bodies in the Commonwealth and asked them what kind of information they most needed. At the time, nearly all put current journals at the top of their lists. Since then, increasing numbers of academics in the developing world have requested electronic data, particularly in the relatively cheap and robust CD-ROM form.

How many copies are sold of a book in average book?

Average sales

Books

• 4,500Median* number of copies sold of the first book that an author wrote where the author did not use a book publicity or marketing service
• 5,000 Median number of copies sold of the first book an author wrote where the author did not use a book agent
• 10,000 Median number of copies sold of the the first book an author wrote where the author did use a book publicity or marketing service
• 12,000 Median number of copies sold of the first book an author wrote where the author did use a book agent

eBooks

For 2005 1.692.964 eBooks were sold with a total revenue of $11.875.783 and 5.242 eBooks availible.

• 232 copies sold of an eBook

References

• More Books, More Publishers, Higher Prices, Publishers weekly, june 2, 2003
• Trish Groves, Information sharing: getting journals and books to developing countries
• Price wars come at a cost
• How many copies do business books sell?
• December Bookstore Sales Disappointing
• Industry eBook Sales Statistics 2005
• Book publishing industry net sales totalled $25.1 billion in 2005
• Association of American publishers: Press centre