Flip, skip, and dip

Between 1975 and 1980 I worked in a large British publishing house. It was an eye-opening experience. 

So for the next 35 years I told everyone, especially fellow journalists, that only narcissists write books. Then last year I discarded my own advice and, in a fit of vulgar self-admiration, wrote a book myself.

This too was a revealing experience. When the reviews came in – mostly glowing, I should add – I realised that I need not have written 90,000 words. Around 10,000 would have done because – or so it seemed to me – people read only about a tenth of a non-fiction book. 

Flip, skip, and dip is the guiding principle. (Have you noticed how sheepish most people look when you ask them if they have read the book? The shameless say yes; the rest tell the truth — that they have only flipped or skimmed through it.) 

This tendency raises a number of questions, not least of which is this: Why do people pay several hundred rupees for a book to consume only a tiny portion of it? I mean would you buy a large masala dosa or a bottle of scotch and leave it only half eaten or drunk and that on a regular basis? I think not.

Nor do people walk out of a movie after 30 minutes or listen only to the first five minutes of a 30-minute CD. Once you have paid, you want full value. You will watch or listen to the entire thing. 

Confused identity

So what is it about books? Why do people think it is perfectly all right to waste the money which they have spent on them? Not just that: After having read only a 10th of the book, what makes them feel confident that they have done the right thing in not reading it fully?

If you want to use economic jargon, is there an oversupply of words and pages? And is this because there is over capacity, that is, too many people wanting to write books? 

Nor is a book like newspapers or magazines which, owing to their generality, contain several pages that most people don’t read at all. A book, on the contrary, is a specialised thing, which is bought only by those who are interested in the subject. 

So why do they read only portions of it? Indeed, I know of people who buy a book but don’t even open it for months, if ever. 

A book also has another peculiar characteristic: It is both a perishable and durable thing simultaneously. This hugely confuses its economics. 

In the hands of the publisher and the bookseller, it is perishable in that once sold, like a fruit or a vegetable it will not be taken back. But in the hands of the buyer it is a durable because it can sit on the shelf for a hundred years even.

Now since the publisher and the bookseller treat it exactly like a fruit or a vegetable, they prefer not to carry stocks for too long. This, you can see, is exactly like the guy who sells, say, unripe fruits because he doesn’t want to keep unsold stock overnight. The things have to ripen in your house and it is you who carry the stock.

This works to the advantage of both. 

Patience pays

The trick, then, for the consumer would be to wait for the discounts, which would, in a manner of speaking, reduce your carrying cost. This is easy these days because discounts can begin within two weeks after a book is published. If you buy online, the discounting begins on day one. 

This is just like what the government employees in Delhi do when they buy fruits and vegetables on the way back home from work. As evening buyers, they get a better deal.  

The same thing is true of patient buyers of books with two added advantages. One, unlike fruits and vegetables, the book doesn’t deteriorate and two, if you have paid less than the listed price you can afford to read only a tiny portion of the book — or not at all if the discount was large enough.

Indeed, since reviewers get their books free, they are under no pressure to read the things fully. 

Like I said, for them it’s flip, skip, and dip. As to the authors, they get less royalty. 

But who asked him to write the damn thing in the first place?