Of Kindle, Browsers, Bargainers...and GROUCHO MARX

While hoping somebody will BUY the book...authors shudder about: illegal downloaders, the pennies to be made off Kindle editions (which they can't sign, and which instantly get bootlegged on torrents) and used copies cheaply available on eBay and Amazon.

Groucho Marx, in penning "Groucho and Me" back in 1959, groused and grumbled about the worst scourage of the day:

"I'd like to say a few unkind words about the miserly Scrooge known in bookish circles as "the browser." I'm sure you have seen him in many a bookstore. He reads a review...that sounds pretty tasty. Fortified with this briefing, he casually enters a bookstore, ferrets out a copy of the book, and if he is a rapid reader (or "skimmer" as he is known in the trade) he gets through it pretty thoroughly in forty-five minutes. He then scrams unobtrusively through a side door so that he can come back another day and help pauperize some other hard-working author."

Groucho's gripe came to mind the other day when I was in The Bookcellar, the used bookstore at the Webster Library. They raise funds (about $100,000 a year) for not only that local branch, but the entire New York Public Library. I volunteer there several days a week, curating and sorting the records, DVDs, VHS tapes and CDs that come in. Well, one nice young lady came in, and asked for a particular new title. An alert volunteer (not me) guided her right to a bookshelf. There it was, a virtually new copy of that new book, probably $19.95 trade paperback retail, for $4. No better deal could be had on line, where $4 postage is usually tacked on.

What did the girl do? She smiled meekly, and said, "Is that the...um...best price?" And a volunteer said, "Oh, I understand, you're a student. Students don't have much money." And he asked the lady at the cash register, "Can you help her? She's a student."

"Let's see," came the reply, without a smile. A quick look at the new book: "How about three?" Sold.

Now, this is a bookstore run for charity. Someone else would've bought the book at $4 in a day or two. Would this college girl go into Starbuck's and ask them to shave a dollar off their $4 mocha-latte-deluxe? Would she even think twice about dropping $4 on a drink to refresh herself on the way to the rest of her shopping? Of course not. How do you compare the $4 for a momentary snack, and the $4 for a book that will give hours, and hours of entertainment and education?

Wrote Groucho in 1959:

"A man will think nothing of paying four or five dollars for a pair of pants, but he'll think a long time before he'll pony up the same amount of money for a book."