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AbeBooks has been a huge phenomenon in the book industry. It allows used book dealers, or really just about anyone with some dusty old paperbacks, to sell their books through one unified website. Since AbeBooks took off, Amazon has copied their idea and incorporated it into their site. On Amazon product pages you will often see something like "13 NEW and 23 USED editions available." This is the AbeBooks model ported to Amazon.
Now there's a website that's trying to do the same thing for music, by selling used CDs and of course used vinyl. There may be other sites, but NetSoundsMusic has showed up in my web wanderings lately.
While I'm all for companies selling and promoting books and music, the problem with AbeBooks is that authors don't make any money from the sales of used books, and likewise musicians don't many any royalties from the sale of used records and CDs which is what NetSoundsMusic is selling. It's a loss of potential sales.
Making artist-friendly purchases
Of course the great advantage of these sites is that they provide access to books and recordings that have long since gone out of print. I recently bought a used book from Amazon that has been out of print since 1992 and it was the only way I could buy it. I'm thankful for that. The book came from some small bookstore in rural B.C.
But I do have reservations about businesses that sell great quantities of books and CDs that are readily available as new copies elsewhere and for little additional cost. Of course I'm biased because I work for a publisher by day and I'm a musician by night.
I can't blame consumers for buying the cheaper option either, but buying great quantities of used CDs when you can easily find and afford new CDs doesn't help the artists. You might as well download the music from file-sharing sites for free. I think it's worth educating people about this. In my informal survey of friends, most of them didn't realize that buying used books and CDs cuts out the authors and musicians, and of course the publishers and record companies. I know people today don't have much sympathy for record companies, but please reserve some sympathy for musicians, authors and especially publishing companies. It's a very tough business to survive in, let alone thrive in.
One might argue that any exposure for a band is good exposure. Many artists are giving away (some) of their music for free online, as are some authors giving away (some) of their book content free online. But unlike used book and CD sales, providing free content on artist websites is in the artists' control.
I'm not saying we should ban or rally against businesses like AbeBooks and NetSoundsMusic. I would just like people to be conscious of all this so that when they do purchase books and music, they can at least make informed decisions about where to buy them.
A better model?
Andrew Dubber posted an interesting article about a UK jazz label that has scads of "new" vinyl records dating back to the 1970s simply because they didn't sell, or didn't get distributed, or didn't get marketed well, which is common from what I hear. Imagine if someone managed to start an on-line store selling this stuff? And because they're "new" vinyl records, the artists should get a cut in the deal.
In his post Dubber says he's thinking about doing just that, and hopefully he can work something out with Cadillac Jazz Records because that would be great to see some of these recordings back on the market. Hopefully the musicians who are still living will be able to benefit as well.
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