Browsing the Bookshelves

Lynne Scanlon's recent article on the effects of flooding the book world with advance reading copies and uncorrected bound proofs in Publisher's Weekly (Slaves to the Galley) is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.  There is little in her analysis of the situation that I can find to argue with. Publishers do send out too many; and often to the wrong people.  But I have to take issue with her statement that this situation creates a bonaza for used booksellers.  This is not the case. The majority of uncorrected bound proofs have little or no value in either the used book or the collectors' market.  Only those from established and respected authors - a tiny slice of the publishing market - are likely to attract the interest of book collectors or literary sleuths.  Those from the also-rans do little more for the second hand book seller than clog up the shelves with slow-if-ever moving stock.  The art for the book seller is not in acquiring ARCs and uncorrected bound proofs but in discerning between those which have real literary merit and may become desirable to collectors over the years and those which do not warrant the storage space.  The used bookseller must learn to resist the aspirations of joe public who, having acquired a handful of proofs, usually by browsing the shelves of the charity shop next door, wander into the shop hawking their wares in the full expectation that they have something rare and special and expect to be offered a significant sum in recompense for their "skill" in book hunting.  Most booksellers would do better to decline all  ARCs and proofs that they are offered.  There is a market, and a rewarding one, for a small selection of pre-publication editions, but it takes experience and expertise to distinguish between the gems and the dross.

Scanlon argues that publishers should target a more limited distribution of advance copies to those likely to generate effective publicity or significant orders. That has to be right. But there are other ways in which publishers could help to retain the value of their books as they reach the market.  The practice of "limited edition" advance copies should stop - as should be growing trend for authors to sign proofs or advance copies. In persisting in these activities, publishers are creating the market for items which are not intended for sale - and diluting the value of those which do reach the market.  The claim that second hand booksellers are somehow polluting the market place with such items is nothing more than denial. If publishers produce such desirable items, the collector will want them.

The other area to which publishers should give more attention is to those offering advance copies for sale prior to publication. It is quite natural that keen followers of a particular author will want to read the "next book" as soon as possible. As a result, advance copies from popular authors offered for sale prior to publication can attract quite a premium.  For instance, proof copies of Elizabeth Kostova's excellent literary mystery, The Historian, were selling for as much as £60 to £80 on ebay in the weeks before its publication in August 2005.  Similar asking prices appeared in ABEbooks, one of the largest on line venues for second books. 

Amazon's terms and conditions for its third party sellers prohibits marketplace sellers from offering ARCs and proofs on its marketplace platform but the numbers that are actually available suggest that the policy is honoured only in the breach.

I can detect no signs that publishers are applying pressure to any of the on line venues to control the availability of advance or proof copies prior to publication. If there is a real desire to retain the value of a book as it is published, surely the eradition of pre-publication sales of advance sales should be a priority.

Scanlon argues that publishers should seek to prohibit the sale of advance copies until a book has gone out of print. While I sympathise with Scanlon's intentions, I believe this would be impractical as well as undesirable.  Impractical because, as print on demand technology marches on a pace, we are faced with the real prospective of books never going out of print. And undesirable because it would depreive students of literature from a valuable literary source.  The better solution would be to enforce strictly the prohibition on pre-publication sales, especially on line.