Literature|From the point of view of libraries, a book sold exclusively in K-shops can cause additional costs and work when it cannot be found in the selections of contracted suppliers.
Yesterday appeared Kari Hotakainen the unusual sales model of a novelty novel causes additional work and can make acquiring a book significantly more expensive for libraries than usual, the libraries say. Hotakainen’s Helmi novel is sold under the Pirkka brand exclusively in K stores.
Turku City Library’s service manager Kaisa Hypénin according to Hotakainen’s book sales model brings additional costs and work to libraries. According to Hypén, the Pirkka book is not available in the online store selections of contract suppliers. The libraries acquire the vast majority of their collections from the selections of these contracted suppliers.
So do library employees have to walk to K-shops to buy Hotakainen’s work? At least the small regional library is told that the book is purchased directly from the local K-store.
“Well, that’s how it is. There aren’t really any other options. No special offer has been made to libraries for this, but we are a customer among others,” says Hypén.
The service manager responsible for Tampere City Library’s collections says the same Sonja Hakkarainen.
The CEO of the publisher of the book, Kustannusosakeyhtiö Siltala by Arto Forstén according to the book is coming to the libraries as usual from the distributors. However, there may be delays in the publication of the book due to the unusual sales model.
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According to Kaisa Hypén, if a more expensive acquisition model for libraries were to become common, the number of books would have to be compromised.
Additional work is caused by the fact that the contracts also specify a price for plasticizing the books. Now this work is done in the libraries themselves.
According to Hypén’s estimate, a novel costs the library tax-free on average around 17–18 euros. Hotakainen’s book pay 27 euros with 10 percent value added tax. In the case of a popular author, the financial impact is accentuated.
“If, when purchasing dozens of volumes, the book is, for example, 6-7 euros more expensive than usual, then it will definitely be felt in our wallet.”
Tampere does not know how to comment on whether Hotakainen’s book is possibly a more expensive purchase than usual.
Turku City Library’s Hypén hopes that the case will remain a one-time experiment. According to Hypén, if a more expensive acquisition model became common for libraries, the number of books would have to be compromised, which in turn would affect the versatility of the selections.
“It would mean that the reservation queues would get longer, especially if it is about such a well-demanded and interesting work. Yes, it would be really bad for us, and above all for our customers,” says Hypén.
Hakkarainen also finds it challenging to get books from Kesko instead of contractual brokers.
“If it remains only for exclusive sale, it will make it difficult for us to acquire material in the sense that it always requires separate additional work and fragments the field,” he states.
Pirkka book has already caused indignation in some booksellers. The Ruovetinen Vinha bookstore said it would remove Hotakainen’s previous books from its selection for the time being in protest of the author’s and Kesko’s exclusive publication.
Bookseller Pasi Vainio told HS on Wednesday, that Hotakainen’s, Kesko’s and publishing house Siltala’s solution feels like showing the middle finger to shops that live on printed books.
Giving an exclusive right to central retailers and justifying it as an incentive to read and talking about a small merchant when it comes to Pirkka products is, to say the least, a strange veil of fog, Vainio wrote in the press release.
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“It remains to be seen how this will take off and whether such solutions will become more common. Let’s see what comes out of this.”
Fiction sales have been in bookstores since the beginning of the year in the Netherlands.
CEO of the Norwegian Book Trade Union Laura Karlsson says that the association hopes that all stores would have the opportunity to get all the books in their selections. Through that, bookstore networks would also be supported and maintained.
However, Karlsson states that, in principle, book publishers decide themselves to whom they give their books for sale, and bookstores also decide on their selection.
“There have been exclusive agreements, so this is not the first time. For example, bookstores have had works on sale exclusively for a certain limited time. However, this is the first time under the Pirkka brand.”
Karlsson also says that bookstores in general cannot always include all published books in their selections.
“It remains to be seen how this will take off and whether such solutions will become more common. Let’s see what comes out of this.”
Miscarriage purchasing and sales director of consumables Hannele Åberg says that the book is the Pirkka brand’s first attempt at publishing a book, and there are no further plans for similar publications.
“The idea came strongly from the direction of Hotakainen’s publisher Kustannusosakeyhtiö Siltala. Then we thought about how it would sound to make such a book.
In Kesko’s press release, the publication of the book under Pirka is justified, among other things, by the accessibility of K-stores. In addition, the concern about the deterioration of Finnish reading skills is brought up.
According to Åberg’s information, Hotakainen’s Helmi book is currently on sale in hundreds of K-stores, but the exact number is not known, as retailers order books for their stores based on demand.
According to Åberg, Kesko is not involved in how the Helmi book gets to libraries.
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