Monopoly Bookstore Chains and Left Wing Magazines.

[William S. Lear]

On Thu, October 22, 1998 at 13:46:55 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes:
>Michael Cohen wrote:
>
>>I was looking for New Left Review in Boston, hardly a backwoods
>>rural outpost and a found a few scattered places which carry it.
>>However, they were out of the current issue.
>
>You're right that it's getting harder to find left periodicals in the
>stores. (Of course, the population of left periodicals itself is falling,
>but that's a separate issue.) Chains are part of the story - the decline of
>independents, both explictly left and not, means that fewer stores are in
>it for reasons other than profit maximization. Another problem is
>distribution; periodical distribution in general is a business full of
>criminals and incompetents. The Independent Press Assn list is full of
>complaints from people who've been fleeced by distributors, many of them
>smallish "alternative" distributors.
>
>Any retailer run on principles of profit maximization is not going to
>feature the Brenner issue of NLR very prominently, despite the rare cover
>pictorial. Monthly Review redesigned itself to fit on bookstore shelves
>better, but B&N is not going to feature a magazine that looks like that,
>much less one that isn't merely socialist, but advertises it on the cover.
>...

Noam Chomsky mentions that there have been changes in the tax laws
that have been very important in forcing a much more rapid turnover of
unsold books.  Nobody has mentioned this, though.  Anyone else heard
of it?

In *The Common Good*, a collection of interviews with David
Barsamian, he says (p. 12):

     I  think it's mostly just  plain  market pressures.   Bestsellers

     move fast, and  it costs money to   keep books around that  don't

     sell very quickly.  Changes in  the tax laws have exacerbated the

     problem,  by  making it  more expensive  for  publishers  to hold

     inventory, so books tend to get remaindered much sooner.

Bill