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'The value of books'

6 November 2006

'We don't think that every major title we publish needs to have dramatic price promotion in order to sell in high volume. Of course, we understand the value of price promotion in driving sales, but we have to do it on terms that are economic. We are concerned about the messages that are being sent to consumers about the value of books if we just price promote everything at the expense of other forms of promotional activity....

'We've rarely been through a period where the variants in performance by channel have been so great. Yes, the high street is having a difficult time, but that is not to say the whole book market is having a difficult time because, as we know, Amazon continues to grow and the supermarkets are doing well. The situation is the same in the US, where both Borders and Barnes and Noble have been reporting some prettyweak numbers, and yet if you look at the AAP (Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies) data the market as a whole doesn't seem to be in bad shape.'

John Makinson, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of Penguin in Publishing News