Books and photocopy

Books and photocopy

Can someone please explain to me why bookshops have so few customers, but photocopy shops have so many, while the photocopiers themselves proliferate on every corner? This is an aspect of the Indonesian book market that has not been considered in your editorial, nor by the esteemed Doddy Yudhista in the report "Indonesia needs law."

Most photocopy shops charge Rp 100 per page. Although this is a reasonable price by world standards -- I pay 20 cents, or Rp 320 per page in Australia -- a book of 200 pages will cost Rp 20,000 to copy and the result is very heavy and inconvenient. But still it is likely to be cheaper than a standard textbook.

I recently purchased a basic text about my professional subject at the Queensland Institute of Technology student shop. It cost $ 55, or about Rp 88,000, but could be copied here for less than half that. Yet with lower labor costs than the developed world, Indonesia should be able to produce such books at prices much closer to the photocopy cost in spite of the possibly higher cost of paper here. Photocopying is an extremely inefficient method of printing and needs good quality paper costing around Rp 10,000 per ream!

The ease and low price of copying must result in small quantities of book sales, particularly for popular titles. This results in high costs per volume sold, and must be a major factor in the need for high prices. The law that is needed (or, if it already exists, then its enforcement) is the law of copyright. The recipe is simple: enforce copyright, print large quantities of each title, and sell them at a low price. Students benefit from the low prices, publishers increase their profits from the high volume of sales, and bookshops become a hive of activity. Surely, libraries must benefit also.

EDWARD S. WEBBER

Jayapura, Irian Jaya