During the Double 11 shopping festival, a major shopping Web site in Taiwan offered books at a discount of up to 34 percent, selling at a loss to drive up demand. Other online shopping sites and bookstores followed suit, and ended up frustrating many independent brick-and-mortar bookstores, which protested by closing for a day on Wednesday last week.
The unexpected nature of the price war also sparked concern among publishers, who were worried that the popular practice of offering a discount of 21 percent for online book sales would no longer be competitive enough, and that shopping Web sites would dominate the sales channels, push prices further down and cut into their profits.
Ever since online book purchases gradually overtook brick-and-mortar bookstores, 21 percent discounts have become the norm. Although the Ministry of Culture and the publishing industry have proposed fixed prices for books, the reality is that, even with a 21 percent discount, books are hardly flying off the shelves, and are often returned to publishers. Fixed prices are not a sure-fire solution.
The shopping Web sites’ 34 percent discount book promotion should be sounding alarm bells. What if this shot in the arm still failed to significantly boost sales? What if book sales go back to the old strategy of 21 percent off after Double 11? The real problem is not the 34 percent discount, but because the public has gotten used to reading materials for next to nothing, or even free via online searches.
Paid subscriptions for online publications in the nation have never really got off the ground, and in some cases magazines have resorted to offering daily access for only a few New Taiwan dollars, including access to all content available to readers of the print edition. Even then, this policy has failed to make significant headway.
The situation has been exacerbated by initiatives such as intercity/county book borrowing from public libraries, as well as the large amounts of reading that students are expected to do when they start high school. Given this, it is no wonder that it is difficult to sell new books without significant discounting.
Publishers are faced with a sea change in reading behavior for which the usual strategies no longer work. Instead of launching a stream of new titles to stimulate the market, they should publish books that would inspire readers and make them want to collect them or discuss them with the person sitting next to them.
There have been a few examples recently of titles that have proven very popular and are already in their third or fourth printing. On the other hand, some books do not make it beyond the first printing.
If the book is good, it would sell itself, whatever the price. The others will just end up in bargain bins or returned to publishers.
Selling books at a 34 percent discount on Double 11 is not the real problem. When reading content is readily available, publishers will only be able to survive if they print books that can truly inspire readers.
Chang Hsun-ching is a writer.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry