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I had a bit of a debate with some folk on Twitter regarding the mounting concerns about the above-mentioned increases and reached out to a bookseller and book publisher for comment.
Surprisingly, the comments are much the same, with emphasis being put on the fact that the weakening Rand negatively impacts US/UK/SA import and export prices.
On the weaker Rand - Lood du Plessis, bookseller and Marketing Director of TFS Book Services comments:
To understand book pricing one has to understand how books are sold in the South African market.
Because of our location and status as a Commonwealth nation we generally fall under the Commonwealth rights section of most internationally published books. These books are mostly distributed from publishers based in the UK.
Books that land in SA are thus usually bought in in Pound prices, or alternatively US Dollar prices for books bought from international rights distributors. This means that books are immediately affected by the exchange rate - Rand goes down, book prices go up.
Read the full comment here
The Amazon and Ebook effect - Jeremy Boraine, publishing director for Jonathan Ball publishers responds:
Ebooks have had a serious impact on the local industry. All imported books once arrived at our ports, moved through our warehouses, into bookshops and, finally, into your hands. Now a multitude of them instead fly direct from Amazon onto your Kindle, cutting out the South African industry entirely.
Not all books, of course, but the effect was akin to losing a limb. The wound is cauterized and we continue, but now we have fewer books to make the wheels of our industry go round. And that puts pressure on pricing.
Read his fully expanded response in this article here.
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