Changes in Book Chain

Sorry about the weird colours yesterday. I got tangled up in the new version of Blogger.
Today I won't touch a thing!
I hear Waterstones has been sold and the new MD says they will be no more 3 for 2 offers in store. I took advantage of the offer only once when there were 3 books I really wanted. Must say something for my will power over a decade! Most people seemed to get sucked in when they really only wanted one book, but could be tempted by the second and didn't care about the third, but it was on offer and what the hell, it was free anyway. A bit like the BOGOF examples in the superstores, where people buy and then complain that they didn't use all the product before it passed its sell-by date. Why buy if they didn't plan to use it all? Seems weird to me. What's to stop them blanching and freezing vegetables or making fruit crumbles and freezing them?

But to get back to books - it will be interesting to see what changes the new head, Daunt, brings to the book chain. He is thinking of selling campaign books (I presume he means those that publishers pay to have pushed in store) at £3, £5 and, if I've remembered correctly, £7. Few books I read are priced anywhere near £3 or even £6. More often they're £6.99 or £7.99, occasionally £10.99 for the larger format. So any book priced at £8.99 will have to be sold at £7 (or less) if it is to be pushed. Otherwise it will go and sit on the shelves with all the rest. It's the rest of the deal that is interesting - will publishers have to bear the reduced price and still pay the store? Must check a few publishers blogs to find out.
(The pic is carriage rides on the Gibside Estate, a National Trust property)