There are some things that most people know (or think they know) about the British book trade. For example that books are very expensive compared to some other places, and that buying a paperback can be unwise – due to the system of “perfect binding” where the pages are just stuck on to the spine, so they fall out if one actually reads the book a few times.
However, I do not wish to examine such points here. I wish to point out the simple leftism of the book trade. This may seem a predictable whine from a libertarian like me, but it is more than a whine.
Recently I read a review of Robert Conquest’s Dragons of Expectation in The Economist.
The review claimed that Conquest did not understand that his side now dominated the world. If by “his side” the review meant anti-Marxism, this domination does not seem to be in evidence in universities (or, in terms of attitudes, in most of the electronic media and much of the print media in the Western world – let alone in such places as Latin American governments), but let us leave that aside.
I went to bookshop after bookshop in search of Robert Conquest’s work. Borders, Waterstones, W.H. Smith – you name the shop, no book.
“But you could order the book or get via the internet” – but why should I have to?
Why should a work by the leading historian of Soviet Russia (the author of “The Terror” and other works) not be found on the shelves, so that I can have a look at it and decide whether I want to buy it? In fact none of Robert Conquest’s works were on the shelves of the bookshops of whatever town I happened to be in (London, Bolton, Manchester, York, Kettering – it did not matter what town). And remember Robert Conquest is not a radical libertarian – he is just a historian who did more than any other to expose the crimes of the Marxists.
Take the example of Borders in York – wall to wall Noam Chomsky. Literally wall to wall – a whole shelf full of his political writings (not his writings on the basis of language) and books on the next shelf to. And (of course) the endless works of M. Moore, and all the rest of the ‘death to Bush’ crowd.
Now I am no fan of President Bush, he has gone along with greater increases in domestic government spending than any President since Richard Nixon (and Mr Nixon had the excuse of a Democratic party controlled Congress). But the legion of Bush haters one finds in the book shops do not attack ‘No Child Left Behind’ or the Medicare extension or all the rest of the wild spending.
When they attack his foreign policy they do not understand that it is (for better or worse) a continuation of the policy of such men as President Wilson – i.e. an effort to impose democracy overseas. They present the whole policy as an effort to line the pockets of business contractors – or to impose Christianity in place of Islam. And when the authors discuss domestic policy they present a mythical anti-Welfare State pro-free enterprise President Bush.
Just as works on British politics present a free enterprise Mr Blair – rather than the real one of higher taxes, higher government spending and more regulations.
“Such ideas may be absurd, but they are the books that sell and book stores are in business to make a profit”.
How do they know that these will be the only books that will sell when they hardly ever advertise anti-statist books? Certainly there will sometimes be a promotion for an anti-statist book (such as the recent Mao: The Unknown Story – although this work seems to blame Mao as a man, rather than socialism as a doctrine for what happened in China), but this is very rare.
If one sees the notice “We Recommend” or “We Highly Recommend” on or near a book, it is a fairly safe bet that the book is bad – full of factual errors and written by someone who would like to nationalize the bookshop and send its shareholders to the death camps [editors note: there are solutions to this].
I am not even sure that such books do sell well. After all, if this so, who does one see (every sale time) great piles of leftist books on sale at half price (or less). I say again, how do the book shop people know that British people do not want to buy anti-leftist books in economics, history, philosophy and politics when such books are hardly ever promoted and are mostly simply not on the shelves?
A person who comes into a bookshop (rather than buys over the internet) is there to see what sort of books are about in areas of knowledge that he is interested in. To physically touch and look at these books – to see what he might like to buy (rather than just trust reviews). And yet a person who entered a British bookshop would encounter (for example) in economics just establishment Keynesianism (with all the standard absurdities, such as the doctrine that an increase in government spending financed by credit expansion boasts long term income) and Marxist (or Marxiod) attacks on Keynesianism. Chicago school works are very rare and Austrian school works virtually non-existent.
The “passing trade” – the people (like me) who often go into book shops to look at books, just can not find works we want to buy. Someone who is not committed politically will find very little in British book shops to challenge the left and open new possibilities to him. And someone who already knows what he wants may as well go straight to the internet (after all the books are not going to be in the bookshop).
“Anti-statist books do not sell” – really? Or is it that British bookshops are dominated by people educated in the universities and these universities are strongholds of the left?
There will be token non-leftist books in the bookshops – but the weight of the left is overwhelming, and I very much doubt that he it has much to do with what sells.
I have always felt the true ‘belly of the beast’ is the
store manager. The Borders in my town, LaGrange Park, Illinois is a dreadful, flip flop wearing creature.
She manages what I consider to be the worst bookstore in the world.
A question: do the bestseller lists at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, etc reflect this? In other words, if there actually _is_ a demand for these books which are not to be found in brick-and-mortar stores, shouldn’t online sales be comparatively higher?
JonB, yes that would be quite interesting to know.
I ordered a copy of The Open Society and its Enemies from a small independent bookshop in NW London.
The bloke behind the counter took great pleasure in recounting to me how, at university, a lecturer had referred to it as ‘The Open Society, by one of its enemies’.
I am not sure if the bookseller chappie was merely pleased to recount the anecdote, or pleased to piss all over choice of reading.
Anyway, he’s dead now.
Do you think this represents a failure of the free market then?
I just did a quick check on sales ranks on amazon.co.uk.
The Conquest book come in at 3,231.
The two best selling Chomisky books come in at 2,662 and 3,140.
So Conquest almost outsells Chomisky despite the overwhelming bias seen in the bookshops.
I don’t see a problem here. Most people buy no books of a political nature. The group that buy the most of this type of book are earnest young student types, and they are very likely to be going throught their idealistic period, hence the Chomsky and Moore. The book shops stock what will sell. Simple as that. It is the market at work.
If only it were simply the book shops. Publishing itself is among the most Leftist dominated of all trades.
This is reflected both in the type of books commissioned and published and also in the editing process itself where, for example, children’s authors are regularly instructed to conform to whatever PC fad or fashion is currently occupying the Bloomsbury mind.
What simon said, with these knobs on:
Bookshops do sell what their customers will buy. There is more demand for leftist books than rightist ones among that portion of the intelligentsia that is a heavy buyer of political works. I don’t agree that they will all be student types buying out of jejune earnestness. Many will be actual students buying set books, interested or not, others will be mature graduates doing a wide range of jobs, university educated and preserving, reinforceing, reliving the political culture of their youth.
What, did you think all those people in the highly paid public-sector and third sector management jobs don’t have a personal intellectual life? Part of the reason they are there is because they do. (My brother is a classic case study.)
Books for entertainment, however, make up the vast proportion of book sales, and even if literary fiction has a leftish twist quite often, popular fiction is solidly reactionary. — Not much libertarian inclined, however.
Publishing is a business, however, GCooper, with very low barriers to entry and extreme fragmentation. The casual leftishness which soaks the established firms (and I’ve never heard of a book edited for political correctness outside the indirectly-state-controlled educational sector, BTW, though books are frequently refused by cowardly publishers if they might offend some powerful group) would not prevent a ‘right-wing’ market arising if there were a demand to support it.
The Conquest book come in at 3,231.
The two best selling Chomisky books come in at 2,662 and 3,140.
So Conquest almost outsells Chomisky despite the overwhelming bias seen in the bookshops.
JMC, you miss a trick; the Conquest book still isn’t beating Chomsky, despite it not being available in traditional bookstores and Chomsky being all over the place. I tend to buy in the local store first, and go to Amazon or Play if I can’t find it there.
guy herbert writes:
“…(and I’ve never heard of a book edited for political correctness outside the indirectly-state-controlled educational sector, BTW, though books are frequently refused by cowardly publishers if they might offend some”
I’m sorry you aren’t aware of the practice, but so it goes. I have known three children’s authors whose work has been editorially directed PC-wards. I have no reason to believe any of them was lying to me – not least because one of them is already a standard bearer in the legions of the Guardianiastas.
I find this complaint obvious but slightly incongruous on a site named SAMIZDATA. The whole point of establishing alternative sources is that the “powers that be” aren’t filling the need.
I haven’t had very much to do with children’s books. It is a different world. They of course sell huge quantities into the state education sector, so that certainly provides a commercial motive for PC interference.
Don’t worry, Mr. Cameron will intoduce a quota system whereby every tenth bookshop must be Libertarian.
But the question commercial booksellers and publishers have to answer is not, “Is there a need?” but, “Is there a demand?”
guy herbert:
“I haven’t had very much to do with children’s books. It is a different world. They of course sell huge quantities into the state education sector, so that certainly provides a commercial motive for PC interference.”
It is always hard to distinguish motives, but I doubt any of the desk editors involved sobbed her heart out at night for having been forced to make such suggestions.
My understanding, incidentally, was that the reason (or, perhaps, excuse) for the changes was less fear of Miss Trot’s fierce guardianship of the ideological purity of her little darlings in 2B, than those of her sibling, who rules the local public library with an iron fist.
I’m not sure I was any more convinced that was the real reason than I am now. I suspect all three are sisters under the skin.
Going to the local mall’s mega bookseller, when I enter it from the outside, there is just about an altar of leftie books, from all the usual suspects, as “new.” However, there were vast, unsold stacks of them, while a rather depleted stock of opposing books hiden on the other side.
Either you believe in the power of the market or you don’t. It’s a bit ridiculous to suggest that a huge chain like Border’s, that makes a fortune selling Victoria Beckham’s autobiography, would baulk at selling established authors like Conquest or Hayek. And any manager of a large chain book shop, no matter how crustily she dressed, would not last long if she didn’t sell what corporate headquarters told her too.
If this complaint were about public libraries I would be in total agreement – why should our taxes fund (another) biased institution – but Border’s, W.H. Smiths etc are private businesses. Mr Marks asks why should he have to go online to buy his books? Just as (ir)relevantly, why should Border’s cater to his desires? If a rival bookstore chain rose up that was crammed full of Friedman, and it started outselling all the others, they’d catch up soon enough (witness the rise of Fox News in the US).
Either you believe in the power of the market or you don’t. It’s a bit ridiculous to suggest that a huge chain like Border’s, that makes a fortune selling Victoria Beckham’s autobiography, would baulk at selling established authors like Conquest or Hayek. And any manager of a large chain book shop, no matter how crustily she dressed, would not last long if she didn’t sell what corporate headquarters told her too.
If this complaint were about public libraries I would be in total agreement – why should our taxes fund (another) biased institution – but Border’s, W.H. Smiths etc are private businesses. Mr Marks asks why should he have to go online to buy his books? Just as (ir)relevantly, why should Border’s cater to his desires? If a rival bookstore chain rose up that was crammed full of Friedman, and it started outselling all the others, they’d catch up soon enough (witness the rise of Fox News in the US).
One person if I thought whether the matter was a failure of the free market.
I do not know what bookshops in a free market place would be like. Britian has government spending at about 44 of G.D.P. and what the government does not spend directly it controls either via the ever more regulations or the credit money central banking system.
Of course (see above) that does not mean that book shops might not be vile in a free society to – I just do not know.
After all a free society would not be a perfect society – all it means is that people are free to engage in civil interaction (i.e. voluntary cooperation not aggression against the bodies or possessions of others).
Another person said it was O.K. as only young idealistic people were interested in politics, history, economics and philosophy (or he said something close to that).
Well I am 40 and I do not think that is young.
Anyway what is being said? Is it “do not worry Paul, these young students will all grow up to be corrupt sons-of-bitches and leave all their ideals behind”.
So the only alternatives are collectivist principles or having no principles – that is exactly what the left say. Sadly a lot of Republicans (for example in Ohio and in Congress) seem to agree “never mind about wild government spending, we are just here to take bribes”.
It is either collectivism or corrupt business in league to oppress the poor people (or whatever).
I refuse to accept the above. I do not agree that the only alternatives are to be an “idealistic” leftist or a corrupt son-of-a-bitch.
I notice that noone at all dealt with my question (which I repeated several times) of why people know that advertising or otherwise promoting antistatist books will not work (i.e. will not increase sales) when they hardly ever try.
The standard “the book shop people are just making a commercial choice to maximise sales, and hence profits”.
Like hell they are.
Culture and human beliefs matter.
As Gramsci (and all the rest) noted, if the left control culture it makes other things more likely to go their way.
And if all people who go into business (not just the book trade) believe that business has to be corrupt that will have an effect on how they do business.
Sure, eventually they will get a bad reputation and the market (“market forces” just being human choices) will force them out – but they will do a lot of harm before then.
And it may well be that the book shops will go down the tubes (at least as far as the sale of factual works is concerned – although I do not agree that fiction is in a good state either) and people will just buy via the internet.
But why does this “have to” happen?
I repeat – how do book shop people know that promoting antistatist books would not work when they hardly ever try?
Is it E.S.P.?
They put the leftist books on the shelves and they do not tend to put the antistatist books on the shelves.
They promote the leftist books and they hardly ever promote the antistatist books.
And then “the leftist books sell more”.
Well it must be a totally pure commercial choice then.
Paul Marks writes:
“They promote the leftist books and they hardly ever promote the antistatist books.
And then “the leftist books sell more”.
Well it must be a totally pure commercial choice then.”
I’m wholly in agreement with Mr Marks. I wouldn’t suggest there is an active conspiracy to suppress anti-statist ideas, but there is certainly an unspoken one and it runs like a rich seam right through the “intellectual” class, which includes publishers, book shop owners and workers, reviewers, librarians and others more peripherally involved in the trade.
The root of the problem, as is so often the case with the things we discuss on Samizdata, lies in higher education, which has been more or less a wholly owned subsdiary of the Left since the end of WWII. Until something is done about that, nothing much in this country is likely to change.
Paul,
Is it time for a Samizdata bookshop then, down there in Chelsea, opposite MI6? If you do open one up, can I take up on option on providing an Austrian shelf?
I think your Gramsci point may be the most pertinent. I’m afraid with the government controlling most schools in this country, for over 100 years, they have what they want; a compliant government-worshipping population. Not necessarily left-wing, but definitely socialist from Hoppe’s point of view (i.e. it’s ok to rob from one group to give to another).
I think the bookshop market could simply be giving the punters what they want, which is Marxoid drivel. I know if opened a bookshop, and was only interested in short-term financial profit and to hell with the long term consequences to liberty, I would stock it head to toe in Michael Moore fat boy rubbish. Although I might keep a few copies of Hoppe under the counter for the discerning late night customer, and sell them in brown paper bags, I wouldn’t be expecting to retire on the proceeds of Austro-Anarchism.
It’s an interesting post, and there could be a little of the Monty Python cheese shop sketch about it, with little call for books on liberty round here, Sir; but I think the answer is simpler. The government has spent our money well on state education. It has created a nation of state-worshipping morons. Let us but hope that we can wake them out of their slumber, but it won’t be through the British book trade.
Now, about that Samizdata book shop…
A Samizdata bookshop, what a good idea. You could get Brian to run it, put it somewhere nice like Covent Garden, and give it a cheeky name like ‘The Alternative Bookshop’.
With the comming of the internet I doubt that a libertarian book shop would be viable as so many potential customers simply buy online (this does not mean that it was doomed when one did exist – there were many factors involved, for example the expensive location – London was correct, but the area of London may not have been).
Of course this does not deal with the problem of why nonleftist (not just nonlibertarian) books are so rare in the bookshops.
The “passing trade” of people who just pop in to the local book shop to have a look around (without any great ideological motiviation to go looking on the internet) are not well served by the couple of companies who control the vast majority of bookshops in Britain – and I doubt that long term shareholder interests are well served either.
But this is another topic.
I’m just reading The Right Nation- the classic about modern America and why it’s different.
There’s a line about the worst elements of conservatives – ‘its paranoia and self-pity, its obsession with conspiracies, its hatred of the establishment for no better reason than that it is the establishment’.
This post about Conquests’s book not being available – it ticks all these boxes.
Relax, no-one’s out to get you. Daddy will help you find your precious book, and the bogey-man won’t hurt…
Strooth writes:
“There’s a line about the worst elements of conservatives – ‘its paranoia and self-pity, its obsession with conspiracies, its hatred of the establishment for no better reason than that it is the establishment’.”
Must be talking about some other country. The liberal-Left has been ‘The Establishment’ in the UK since the 1980s.
Paul Marks writes:
“… not well served by the couple of companies who control the vast majority of bookshops in Britain – and I doubt that long term shareholder interests are well served either.
But this is another topic.”
It is, undoubtedly, a very interesting question and one that can be asked of quite a few major British companies.
To what degree should the political leanings of the Chairman (a hired hand, just as much as the janitor) be allowed to influence disposal and use of the shareholders’ assets?
I hope we get to discuss it at some point.
I had no problem finding The Dragons of Expectation on the shelves of Border’s here in Logan, Utah USA. I must say that the book has interesting pages and Conquest seems very erudite, but the book as a whole is disjointed and doesn’t really argue a thesis, but is rather an episodic monologue where Conquest tells you what he thinks about this and that. It was a bit of a disappointment.
Now I’m off to read the review.
Pimlico’s opposite MI6, Jack. Chelsea has Battersea opposite, a much better class of neighbour.
GCooper,
My understanding, incidentally, was that the reason (or, perhaps, excuse) for the changes was less fear of Miss Trot’s fierce guardianship of the ideological purity of her little darlings in 2B, than those of her sibling, who rules the local public library with an iron fist.
Undoubtedly. I’d lumped in public libraries with ‘education’. You don’t think Miss Trott has unrestrained choice of what she buys do you? There will be an approved or recommended list. And all books for schools will need to be checked that they satisfy the relevant key-stage demands for the national curriculum.
On the general point of the entire intellectual establishment being left-inclined, and programmed thus, yes I agree. And you would therefore expect its core engine of cultural reproduction to be the purest strain. (Though I don’t think it is strategy, so much as elective affinity.)
People with unacceptable, i.e. non-socialist, views are chary about expressing them. I knew Laura Thompson when I first worked for a literary agency, and it was quite affecting to see her article in the Telegraph a decade later admitting to having been a closet Conservative. I hadn’t guessed.
GCooper,
that was part of my point.
Here’s a conservative complaining about a perceived leftish establishment in the UK book trade, coupled with a rather desperate blend of self-pity and conspiracy-theorising…
it’s all baloney.
Re: Nick’s point about free markets. One known failure (yes, markets do have failures!) is agency theory.
Long piece on it from 16 months ago when Glenn Reynolds noted the same thing.
http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2004/11/tim_lambert_gle.html
And clearly I don’t know enough html and am using Firefox.
… rather an episodic monologue where Conquest tells you what he thinks about this and that…
Maybe he should get a blog.
Tim,
One known failure (yes, markets do have failures!) is agency theory.
* It is not a bug; it is a feature. 🙂
Emergent entities and natural phenomena don’t have design flaws unless you are going to drag God into it. If you do I shall insist that it is all part of the Divine Plan. Go to * — or see my unsuccessful joke of a few months back.
If you are saying he is factually incorrect that there are vastly more leftist publications in UK bookstores than anti-statist and rightist ones, then you are talking out of your arse. Just go and look, it is clearly true. Now as to why this is, that is a matter worthy of pondering in an article. Oh, wait a minute…
Several commenters have said (in a “Gotcha!” tone) that the vast numbers of left-wing books are simply the result of market demands and have suggested that as a supporter of free markets Paul Marks is revealed as inconsistent or even hypocritical in being unhappy with this.
If Paul Marks had advocated that bookshops should be forced to sell right wing or free market books, these commenters would have a better point. But he hasn’t. There is no reason on earth why libertarians or free marketeers should not lament the badness of public taste. The only constraint we must impose on ourselves is that we do not seek to use force or fraud in changing it.
Noting that constraint, I challenge the assertion that all these left wing books are simply what the public wants. Ann Coulter is a sometimes a bit too aggressive asa controversionalist, but a chapter of her book Slander has a very funny expose of how the US publishing trade keeps being amazed by the fact that right wing books sell. She lists book after book that was described as a “surprise best seller”: eventually the New York Times miight stop being surprised. Regnery publishing has got rich by riding this wave. Coulter also details repeated instances of large advances paid to left wing writers whose books subsequently did poorly. It seems that the left-wingers in the publishing trade have a touching tendency not to be entirely ruled by their pocketbooks!
Again, I do not seek to force booksellers to act as I want them to. I defend their right to dump large sums on pet projects if they want to. Still, it would be interesting to look at the skew of right to left in the political book buying habits of the British public, and to compare the proportions for bookshops with those of online retailers.
So Marks can’t find his book, and then decides there’s a massive establishment of lefties operating against him. To emphasise his point he uses absurd hyperbole – such as that a recommended book is nearly always bad, and the notion that the only economics books are Keynesian or Marxist (with rare exceptions).
There’s nothing wrong with a little emphasis, and I’ll accept that bookshop owners might tend to stock books that are more left-wing than his tastes, but that’s it. Pushing the argument beyond reasonable limits just makes him look sound a paranoid, self-pitying baby.
Strooth writes:
“Here’s a conservative complaining about a perceived leftish establishment in the UK book trade, coupled with a rather desperate blend of self-pity and conspiracy-theorising…
it’s all baloney.”
Unfortunately, simply repeating the same bald assertion when it has been countered, doesn’t constitute an argument.
Pimlico’s opposite MI6, Jack. Chelsea has Battersea opposite, a much better class of neighbour.
Whoops! Mea culpa. But if its further downstream than I thought, that throws it closer to MI5, doesn’t it? 🙂
Actually, thinking about this bookshop thing, how about the following:
There are few, if any, ‘rightist/libertarian’ bookshops, because rightists and libertarians are all at work doing something useful for society. Whereas leftist welfare-drawing eternal-student type scumbags are loafing around left-wing bookshops, perhaps taking a tiny black market cash wage for working there to supplement their housing benefit and invalidity benefit (received for the invalidity of having no brain).
Leftist bookshops therefore have very low overheads. A collective of scumbags can loaf around there all day in a leftwing Nirvana, drinking Nicaraguan coffee, smoking Gauloise roll-ups, and discussing Rousseau for their French revolution phD (which has so far taken them seven years), while the rightists pay their bookshop ‘wages’ via welfare and state university-supporting taxes. A libertarian bookshop owner would never do this. For instance, we would have to pay Mr Micklethwait a handsome salary for his time in the Covent Garden Samizdata emporium, directly from profits generated from said emporium, and such a lost opportunity salary that it would compensate for his not doing something he considers even more useful, elsewhere. And as rightist intellectuals (both of them) are generally so much more productive, talented, useful, and rare, than leftist intellectuals (about three million of them), it would have to be a very handsome supply-and-demand salary indeed. So if we are to have a rightist bookshop, and a level playing field, we have to abolish all welfare and taxation. My God, I’m starting to sound like an inverse version of Dave Spart. Right, back to the day job.
But GCooper,
I never said there wasn’t a liberal-left establishment. Your pointing out that one exists is a waste of your time, and suggests that you don’t understand my complaint. I was complaining about the whining tone and paranoia.
Clear now? (I’m guessing not, but we live in hope)
Strooth writes:
” I was complaining about the whining tone and paranoia.”
Actually, what you wrote was:
“…coupled with a rather desperate blend of self-pity and conspiracy-theorising…
it’s all baloney.
I was rather hoping you might be able to explain why. But perhaps that’s asking too much.
For some comic relief to this serious question, try reading Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”. Its protagonist is a leftist who works in a bookshop and tries his best not to be a wage slave to a corporate-dominated economy. I won’t spoil the ending but it is interesting to get the views of a man who examined the subject after writing “Road to Wigan Pier” for the Left Book Club.
“The book shops stock what will sell. Simple as that. It is the market at work.”
If only that were true. Back in 2004, Little Green Footballs reported that Borders Books employees were
hiding and damaging conservative books. A reader of this German blog reports that they are still doing it. Judging by attitudes of some of the book people I have met, this is not at all surprising.
For no good reason, I am in process of writing a “fable” of some 150,000 words. Whether or not I find a publisher (agent says the thing is “marketable”), and whether or not it sells, I guarantee you it is not PC. Neither is it a political screed, as such… “self-exemplifying” might be a good description. There is no “McGuffin”, as Alfred Hitchcock used to call it– the protagonist merely faces a very difficult “wise choice.” I would like to think it is a novel of ideas. One 16-year old female character, who likes biochemistry and French literature (like my daughter), tells us, “Existentialism is biochemistry with a paper microscope.” You get the sense. Wealth and fame aside, I wonder just who will be the victim –ah, publisher– who seizes on this new phenomenon? As for perfervid Leftist stall-stackers in the U.K. and elsewhere: May Enki’s Curse be on them and their kin, through many generations. Away!
May I offer a vignette from within the book trade? I work in sales for a number of publishers and imprints. One of our clients imports and markets a number of US imprints in the UK. Among these is a conservative publisher with many works on subjects such as the GWOT from a robust pro-Anglosphere viewpoint. Our client’s representative is supposed to enthuse those of us in field sales – but couldn’t disguise the venomous contempt he felt for any book which advanced even the mildest pro-Bush or pro-American viewpoint.
Such is publishing – stuffed with complacent liberals for whom the Grauniad/Michael Moore worldview is gospel. Here’s the funny thing though – our client is utterly confounded by the success of their bestselling title of 2005. The author? – Theodore Dalrymple.
Borders Books employees were
hiding and damaging conservative books.
If you follow this one up, you find that this is not a field report from someone who’d seen actual books being damaged by actual employees, but a retelling and reframing of “activist” suggestions from a Dave Spart (or whoever is the American equivalent?) site called “Borders Union”. Borders doesn’t recognise unions, and the site is for people who want to unionise and agitate its workforce, IWW-style. So such people, even if the sabotage is not fantasy, are scarcely typical Borders staff.
[Sparts and freikorps feed each other’s paranoiac view of the world as full of organised class-enemies. Blog-eat-blog-garbage ensures the continuing ascendency of mainstream media with a (more) critical view of its sources.]
There is a problem, the demand may be low, but partly because access to the knowledge isn’t there.
It took me 10 years to discover that my basic beliefs are those of individual freedom expressed by the Liberal tradition. All you are exposed to is Socialist propaganda claiming to be about freedom.
The local library shows the same bias. Shelves of Marx. Numerous anti-globalisation books. And then a smattering of liberal and libertarian and free market books. (interestingly those are the books which are always being borrowed when I look for them).
I know many people here will have problems with the public library system, but we should consider using them. Most libraries will order a book for you, so go and order these books. They will end up on the shelves and people may pick them up.
Also if you have an old copy of a book then give it to a charity shop or set it free with bookcrossing.net.
I have not bought a book in a bookstore in 3 years.
Why?
Because I can never find the ones I am looking for in them. If I happened to be a faoming at the mouth LLL I would be able to find plenty to read, but I am not. I can not find books that I am looking for of a non political nature, either. The history sections are filled with revisionist crap, the biography sections are filled with biographies of people I care not to read about. I can not even find stuff that I am looking for in the SF/Fantasy aisle because it seems that it is more important to stock 204857385 books on the making of the Star Wars movies then actual works of SF/Fantasy. If I go to look for books in the Science sections they tend to be either books written by some member of Greenpeace or books that are a bit too simplistic for my tastes.
I used to go and just browse at my local bookstore, now I just go and browse at Amazon. I find what I want and have it shipped to my door-no muss, no fuss.
If I may interject with a little industry knowledge:
Bookstores tend to mirror their communities. In our locals, the Chomsky/Ivins Lefty trash can only get half the promo space (and sit there, unsold), whereas the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy books fly off the shelves.
The reason the Lefty books get any promo space at all is because the giant publishing houses (which publish the likes of Chomsky and Ivins) pay for the promotions — actually, a profit line for the bookstore chain — whereas the VRWC books are printed by much smaller outfits, which can’t afford the “facing” fees.
The reason the VRWC books get any promo space at all is because the sales forecasts show that they outsell the Lefty books, so it’s just good operations to put them out where people can see them.
That’s where we live.
South of us, in Austin (aka. “Moscow on the Colorado”), you can barely find any VRWC books at all — at least, upon a cursory look. The reason is that the clientele (and NOT the staff) will cover up the new Ann Coulter book by putting a Chomsky-type title in front of it. (I’ve actually seen customers doing this.)
The staff, of course, being of the same inclination, seldom re-face the shelves.
On a tangent: the very thought of a “libertarian bookshop” makes me giggle.
“World’s smallest bookshop: contains all the works of Ayn Rand and Karl Popper — and that’s it.”
(Yeah, I know there are other libertarian writers — but why would anyone need to read them, when Rand Has Said It All?)
I think Paul is on to something here. I have walked up and down Charing Cross Road many a time, spending hours browsing through Borders, Blackwells, Foyles and other shops looking in vain for some truly “alternative” books. Unfortunately, most booksellers think that “alternative” means Chomsky, Dowd, Fisk, Pilger and other counter-culture, anti-globalisation, war-for-oil conspiracy authors.
I think what Paul is trying to say is that most booksellers wouldn’t realise that there is a market for right of centre or libertarian books. Most of them will have had a liberal arts education at a UK university. They think that Chomsky, Moore etc. are what intelligent book-reading types such as themselves would want to read. Since almost every single (“real” rather than online) bookshop stocks the same sort of political/polemical books, none of them notice that there is a market for libertarian and right-of-centre authors.
As a recommendation to any London readers, there are two locations which I’ve found to be good hunting grounds in the past. One is the book market under Waterloo Bridge (opposite side of the river to Embankment station), the other is the Westminster bookshop on Artillery Row, just off Victoria Street. The book market is pot luck. Westminster bookshop is small, but they stock things which can’t be found elsewhere in London like the New Criterion, Salisbury Review, and even a few favourable biographies of G.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Y’know even when you do find the book you’re looking for it’s quite amusing to watch the reaction of the sales staff when you actually purchase it.
A couple of years ago I bought Lomborg’s ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’. When I handed it to the sales assistant (I could be wrong, but he certainly looked like a lentil-munching Guardianista) he looked at me like I wanted to buy the latest issue of ‘Kiddie Fiddler Monthly’. I surprised I wasn’t asked: ‘Would you like that in a plain brown bag, Sir?’
“…he looked at me like I wanted to buy the latest issue of ‘Kiddie Fiddler Monthly’.”
What’s wrong with an interest in the next generation of bluegrass musicians?
It is not just one book Strooth.
If this book (which is not even written by a libertarian – he just happens to be a leading modern historian who is not a leftist) was not there and lots of other antileftist books were there I would see your point – but the antileftist books are not there.
As for my “daddy” – he is dead (years ago now). The leftists ruined his life – no doubt you will call that “paranoia” as well.
I would not agree with G. Cooper that the left became the establishment in the 1980s (indeed that was the time of the Thatcher revolt – the last effort to fight back in this country, the revolt was defeated but it was a go).
The left (if one defines “left” as people who wish the government [or “the organised community” or whatever term they wish to use] to dominate civil society -and sometimes people called “rightwing” [such as Fascists or National Socialists] also want some version of this) has always been powerful – but if I had to pick a moment when it became “the establishment” I would pick a small incident.
In about 1963 a B.B.C. television show came on air called “That was the week that was”, as has been admitted by main man of this show David Frost (now Sir David Frost – I heard him admit the following on the B.B.C.’s own “Desert Island Disks” show), the purpose of “That was the week that was” was not to be a general satire of politics – it was to attack conservatives more than anyone else (whether they were in government or out of it).
This clearly went against the B.B.C. charter and the B.B.C. should have had its licence fee (the tax that finances it) abolished – but the Conservative party Prime Minister of the time (Harold Macmillan – an anticonservative “Conservative” who was obsessed with being “modern” in his politics) would do nothing.
The Conservatives went along with their own destruction without resistance (as they were doing even in such things as building – for example putting up ugly and structually unsound council flat blocks in every major town in the country and destroying as many decent buildings as they could).
Certainly there have been such things as the Thatcher revolt since this time.
But in all the basic instutions – from the Church of England to the universities conservative (let alone libertarian) resistance just collapsed in the 1960’s. One televison show may hardly matter – but it was incident out of so many at the time and since (and does seem to sum things up).
The leftists can not really be blamed – they tried for power as they always had (I would expect that). What happened was that the antileftists just collapsed.
Conservative party governments (such as that of Edward Heath or John Major) have been farcical episodes where the leftist agenda has been followed just as much as under Labour party governments. There was the Thatcher revolt (with all its mistakes and contradictions it was still worth seeing), but there has been no other resistance.
Have a look at Mr Cameron now.
It is not that “the left” came into existance in the 1960’s (that is not true), the “left”, whether we define this term in economic terms or in resitance to traditional moral code terms, has always been with us.
What happened was that antileft (“the right” is not really a useful term – as it used for radical modernist and collectivist movements such as Italian Fascism) just fell apart in the 1960’s. In Britain and many other countries.
Regnery Publishing was founded because so many conservative writers were having trouble finding a friendly publisher. (Of course you *were* asking why the *British* book trade is so bad….)
From professional experience while I would suggest that the institutional bias in the book trade is deeper and more engrained than Paul Marks suggests. This bias is not result of a couple of left-liberals working in branches of Waterstones, but reflects the inherent prejudices of the entire industry, from the publishers through to the retailers
There are many reasons for this, the book trade (retail and publishing) is seen as fluffy and creative and therefore attracts fluffy and creative people, its disproportionately female (60/40) and is not particularly financially rewarding (the irony of this is that virtually all the UK publishing houses are now owned by corporate media giants such as Pearson and Bertsleman). In addition, most graduates from UK universities are leftists rather than rightists, so the potential talent pool from the right is smaller from the start. This is exacerbated by those with rightist leanings opting to head into more lucrative professions, leaving publishing predominantly staffed by left-liberals.
You can appreciate this bias most if you read the trade press such as the Bookseller. The coverage of issues such the putative take-over of Ottakers by HMV (Waterstones), or the rise of Tesco is replete with economic fallacy, self-serving special pleading and unadulturated statism.
What does this bias mean in practice? At its most cynical, the commissioning editors of the publishing houses sign-up their academic friends and their ideological heros. The books that are written are slipped into production and launched with a very significant level of marketing support. This support gets the books selected by the central buyers of the book chains, with the publishers advertising to hype the book and the shelves in the stores cleared to cross-promote the rest of the authors work. If the original title is successful other publishers will launch me-too titles covering the same ground from the same perspective to cash-in. And so on.
In reality, I don’t think its that cynical. Most commissioning editors are just risk adverse and have a narrow focus. They commission what has sold, from a perspective they understand and what they think the book chain buyers will buy. And of course, we are talking about what the chain store buyers might be interested in, not necessarily the consumer.
Would the book chains buy free-market, libertarian or conservative titles? Possibly. Certainly, if the book picked up media or word of mouth coverage. Would a publishing house commission such titles? Again, possibly if they perceived there was demand and if the company had people on staff who knew the market. Its not a simple of matter of bias, but (not unlike the BBC) merely reflects the ingrained prejudices of those involved.
Long term I suppose we just have to get more of our people into the trade and short term buy good books from LFB.com
This is hilarious: so you’ve basically got a problem with the market.
Britain probably has the most unregulated book market in Europe: there’s no lower price limit, even VAT for books is lower than for other items.
And still you moan about the fact that ‘your’ books aren’t on the shelves. Has it occured to you that this could be because people just aren’t interested in ‘anti-statist’ books, therefore bookshops don’t find it profitable to sell them?
And if you’re so concerned about the distortion of the market by ‘leftie’ booksellers, why don’t you take a leaf out of their, ahem, book, and open your own shop? You know, like all of those independent bookshops that somehow keep going despite suffering massive competition from the likes of Waterstones, WHSmith and Amazon?
Hah. Hahahahaha.
I note that “Hahaha….” has not actually dealt with the points I made.
For example, why do book shop people spend such large amounts of effort (and money) promoting the sale of leftist books. When they do not bother to even have many nonstatist (not just libertarian but even conservative) books on the shelves?
How do they know that non statist books will not sell – is it E.S.P.?
After all internet book sellers sell a lot of antistatist books.
Someone who goes into a book shop will see a wild imbalance with what is available on the shelves (so the casual passing trade is led in a certain direction). And Hah, ha ha ha…. can not explain this away.
As for “problem with market” – all the “market” means is human beings making choices. I often have problems with the choices they make – for example all the money spent on drugs or pop “music”. But that does not mean I am in favour of government regulations.
It may be that leftists in the book trade will (eventually) help drive their companies into bankruptcy – and the internet book sellers will take over.
But I think that would be a bit of shame.
Of course (to judge by the books they “recommend” or “highly recommend” the book shop people would be happy to drive the companies they work for to decline and eventual bankruptcy (by making it clear that non leftists are not welcome in the shop – after all if we have to “order” non leftist books, rather than getting them from the shelves, why should we not just get them via the internet?).
But I regard an attitude that says “down with the company I work for” as (in the long term) self destructive.
There is the paradox. Normally works that are “recommended” or “highly recommended” do not just shut out a large proportion of the population of the country (why shut us out?) they also contain opinions that would welcome the destruction of the very companies that own the book shops (and the sending of the shareholders to death camps).
Is this not a bit odd?
Why not try “recommending” a few antistatist books for a change, pushing them and seeing if they sell?
Would choice and diversity be such a terrible crime?