PUTTING A STOP TO CASUAL READING
I've noticed more bookshops in Bangkok are making efforts to stop the casual reading of newspapers and magazine in their shops.
It's common to buy your copy of The Bangkok Post or The Nation with a staple through the cover, but in recent weeks I have noticed an increasing trend in the use of stick tape to keep the pages of magazines closed. The use of sealed plastic bags is also increasing.
As a publisher I am not entirely happy about it. I accept a proportion of sales will come from casual readers flipping through the magazine and seeing something that takes their fancy. But why can't publishers have a single 'read me' copy and keep all the others in an unread, pristine condition. It might also be possible to offer tear-out vouchers within that 'read me' copy to further push the buy-me buttons in the reader.
But this 'sealed copy' stance does lead to lost sales. I did not buy a copy of Time last weekend because it was sealed and I could not see that table of contents.
3 comments:
Covering up or taping shut magazines and newspapers is at odds with your previous blog of wholesalers and distributors only wanting exposure. Do they somehow think that a magazine cover sells ad space? Are they even aware of what is happening to their wares once they are in the shops?
Well, good points as always David.
Many advertisers look in the shops before opting which magazines to advertise with, so yes - in a way having an unsold magazine sitting on a shelf can lead to advertising, which sounds strange, I know. (And false economy because what's to say that a good-seller hasn't already sold out).
A lot of magazines claim, for example, to sell copies in Singapore. That sounds great, until you realize that means they send three copies to one store down there, none of which are sold. It still sounds good though.
There are a number of issues involved here, each worthy of a lengthy blog post themselves. But in short, most publishers in Thailand get the vast majority of their income from advertising, and that's because they sell so few copies through the shops that the income is almost negligible.
Nothing is going to change until widespread independent media auditing is introduced, and that would be akin to turkeys voting for Christmas.
On the other hand, I often see people sitting and reading magazines in shops and therefore not buying them. Shops like Bookazine do not shrinkwrap magazines, but I would guess that they sell fewer copies than shops which do shrinkwrap.
Mat.
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