Channel Stuffing

Go by any Seven Eleven or bookstore here in Japan at almost any time of the day or night and you will see people standing, sometimes for hours, in front of the book and magazine racks reading to their hearts content. I have frequently wondered how the bookstores and publishers make any money. Of course a similar scene takes place in US bookstores, but the intensity here is up by at least one order of magnitude.

As it turns out, they haven't been making money. Sales are down (why buy when you can read every book in the store for free), and to make matters worse, the publishers have been stuffing the channel, loading up the bookstores with books that they know will never be sold. A recent report estimated that around 40% of the books printed and distributed are eventually returned to the publishers as unsaleable.

In the meantime, the sales numbers for translations of popular foreign books are up dramatically. 'Who Moved My Cheese', 'Harry Potter' books, and now 'Lord of the Rings' are runaway best sellers.

Japan Today Japan News - Features - Sales of books, magazines keep sliding
- posted by tempusmaster @ 8:17 PM