Monday, September 21, 2009

US editions in shops

I see that Borders is offering both the US edition and the local Scribe edition of Norman Doidge's bestselling "The Brain that Changes Itself" and the bestseller page for non-fiction lists shows the (cheaper) US edition, which they have in stock. The US cover is much less appealing, much more American in taste. Henry Rosenbloom of Scribe built the success of the book through his marketing efforts, but he doesn't reap all the benefits of his effort. Without Henry's work many Australian readers wouldn't know of this title. This is an example of what the Productivity Commission would like to see happen for more books.

3 comments:

of thieves said...

That is interesting -- but it vexes my understanding of the importation practices a little bit. Isn't it the case that if there's a local version available, overseas versions of the same book can't be sold by a bookseller?

Dame Zara said...

Estelle, with this book and in fact with close to 50% of the overseas-originated books for sale in Australia in a local edition, the local edition wasn't released within 30 days of the original and hence has no protection from parallel importation under the current legislation. What is more surprising is how few booksellers import when they have the opportunity to do so -- unless it's the happy case that the local editions are cheaper and more readily available after all!

Andrew's red dog blog said...

Snap! Nice photo of the Daimler.