11/20/1998   English German
  Edition # 11  
San Francisco, 11-20-1998

Book Prices in the USA

Michael By the way, we also order our books online—whenever we're interested in a book, Amazon, a book retailer, offers all books 20% cheaper on the Internet. You order using your credit card number, and Amazon usually ships the goods via UPS. You get a so-called tracking number, which allows you to track the package's location at any time—again, on the Internet. Recently, I ordered something and saw that it was loaded onto a truck in Florida. Then it disappeared from the tracking system for three days; I was about to call UPS when it reappeared at a large distribution center near San Francisco. The fools had driven it across the entire country by truck!

In Germany, there's currently a debate about the fixed book pricing. The fact is that in Germany, no bookseller is allowed to offer a book for 17.95 DM if the price is listed as 19.95 DM; everyone has to sell it at the same price. Even if a supermarket wanted to make a special offer, they wouldn't be allowed to (except for clearance sales of old stock). Here in the U.S., it's different; the free market rules, and anyone can sell books as cheaply as they want. This, of course, means that the large bookstore chains dominate the market, and the small bookseller around the corner can't compete. Additionally, these chains only stock the books that sell well, namely bestsellers. Alternative books from small publishers don't stand a chance; they never make it to the shelves. As a result, the book selection here is quite monotonous, and you rarely see anything truly new or interesting.

Your dear author, however, writes for a major publisher, and naturally, his book, which will be released in English in January, will be on all the shelves, uaaaahh... Details can be found on my website http://perlmeister.com . For those without a computer, you can also get the information by putting your washing machine on spin cycle and staring into the rotating drum for a while.

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