Brits Complain That Chains Stores Are Killing Books

The Guardian:

"They simply treat books as a commodity," says Nicholas Spice, publisher of the London Review of Books, and one of the chain's sternest critics. "There's no sentiment to it. If it's celebrity biographies that are going to sell, then that's what they'll focus on. They're not looking at it from a cultural perspective."

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[bokiluis]

Marketing and the use of "lost leaders" by large chains has all but killed lower-priced media like books and music. They treat books and music like candy or gum, impulse buys at the checkout counter as opposed to literary and cultural additions to society. It is sad really.
Bygone chains like "Crown Books" once were a great entity to our consumer landscape. But the large chains took the best merchandising angle of the Crown Books of the world, pricing, and used it to decimate the publishing and recording industry.

[S1m0n]

It happened in North America ten years ago, so get ready..

[HacunaMatata101]

Very true, S1mon.

I am glad the Brits are upset, I hope it influences where they shop for books! The indie bookstores, I hope, figure out ways to offer things megachains cannot, and I hope native authors talk up and support the indies as much as they can.