Bookstores selling imported works hit by rupiah woes

Bookstores selling imported works hit by rupiah woes

By Monika Winarto

JAKARTA (JP): Like other traders, Henky S. is busy adjusting
prices of books in line with the fluctuations in the rupiah.

They are going up because Kinokunia, located in Sogo shopping
center in Central Jakarta, sells imports.

A sign posted next to the cash register warns that prices are
subject to change without notice.

Since the rupiah's value continues to fall, the cost of some
imported books has increased by more than 100 percent.

"However, prices of books already two to three years old have
not increased," Henky said.

Eli, an assistant manager of an imported bookstore in South
Jakarta, said Rp 80,000 was the lowest price of her goods.

"Even a small Sidney Sheldon paperback that was formerly Rp
40,000 is now more than Rp 100,000."

She said she had been forced to increase prices since November
because she paid foreign book distributors and her store rental
fee is in dollars.

Kinokunia and Gramedia held out longer than Eli, increasing
prices in January.

Although increases vary from one shop to another, prices of
hardcovers are universally high.

Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy sold for Rp 80,000 just a few
months ago in a Central Jakarta bookstore, but it now carries a
price tag of Rp 253,000.

The same store is charging the equivalent of between Rp 1,000
and Rp 2,000 a page for other books; the 260-page History of
Southeast Asia is Rp 605,000.

Have the book bookstores lost business as a result?

"Our customers understand, and 70 percent of them are
foreigners and they have dollars," Eli said.

But Anna, a 17-year-old Australian, was baffled by the high
prices.

"I could get the same books cheaper in Australia, and,
besides, they don't have a complete range here."

She predicted bookstores would ultimately lose out.

"I think people will just buy books overseas and bring them
here instead of buying foreign books in Indonesia."

This is what lecturers like Triwardani from the University of
Indonesia have been doing to get materials to teach classes.

"Of course, we have to use English textbooks because there are
not enough Indonesian materials for the university level of
teaching, but I can't get them from bookstores here which import
works. So when one of us goes abroad, we buy books there."

She said she could not expect her students to buy them, even
before the economic crisis hit the country.

"The students can photocopy from our books. It may be
breaching the copyright, but it is already a common practice."

Etnobooks, a distributor of imported books for Gunung Agung,
Maruzen, Kinokunia and Gramedia, used to give samples to the
University of Indonesia.

With the new prices, it is uncertain whether lecturers can
afford them anyway.

"We have had to put up our prices by 150 percent, while the
rupiah itself has depreciated so much more," said a manager of
Etnobooks who wished to remain anonymous.

"Actually, the bookstores are not suffering a big loss because
they are charged in rupiah if they get books from us as a local
distributor, and if the book does not sell in 90 days they can
return it."

He conceded it was a different story for bookstores using
overseas distributors or dealing directly with publishers who
charged in dollars.

Only 25 percent of books Gramedia sells are imported and most
buyers are Indonesian, according to Setiawan of the firm's
purchasing department.

"Foreigners only buy our tourist books," he said.

Most of the imported books at the Gramedia branch in Pondok
Indah Mall in South Jakarta are business and economic manuals or
university textbooks.

The latter are predominantly on economics, engineering and
some medicine.

Twenty-one-year-old university student Yudistira has a passion
for English books. He does not buy them for his graphic design
studies but to expand his knowledge of literature and philosophy.

But he confessed he had to be more selective now.

"I have become very choosy with the books I buy and also where
to get them, because some bookstores are more expensive than
others," he said.

He has cut down his weekly purchase of three books to only
one.

Joe, a manager of a foreign bank in Jakarta, said he was also
picking and choosing what he needed to buy because of the
economic crisis. He said English-language reading materials were
not essential items.