i ordered a book from an amazon.com associated retailer. the book was shipped from India (the envelope had Indian stamps, etc). I got it fairly quickly, in maybe 1 week, shipping was $3.99. i was a bit shocked that even businesses like that could be outsourced.
In places like india and other countries in asia, there is alot of counterfeiting going on with books, just like with DVDs. They can print the books for a fraction of what it costs to print the same book here and sell it cheaper and not pay royalties to the author. I was at a mall last week in the philippines and they were selling brand new books for 100 pesos (about $2.25) List price on the back of these books were usually around $13.95 US. No way can someone sell a book that cheap at retail and be paying royalties to the author, so they just print, list on amazon and its all gravy(except for the cut amazon takes and the cost to print)
you are absolutely right! i just opened it and it is indeed printed in India. it is not really counterfeit since it says where it is printed. but i would not be surprised if they forgot to pay the royalties.
Never even knew the people in the philippines use the word Peso to define their currency, i had to look that one up cause i thought you were confused. I have dated 2 Filipino's but never travelled to the philippines with them.....I guess you learn something everyday.
Yeah, but sometimes when referring to 1 peso, they spell it Piso. Not sure why they do that. They also have centavos. I got lots of 25 centavo coins which is worth about half a cent in US money and I dont remember getting it in change, but I found a 5 centavo coin in my pocket one day which is worth about 1/10 of 1 cent in the US. I laughed when I saw it as i was thinking, wow...talk about counting every last centavo in your business.
' "Piso" actually sounds like something i have heard, is the difference in the pronunciation? Meixcan Peso sounds like Pay-So, Piso, sounds like Pee-so, but they spell the same way? Edit: Nevermind I looked it up, apparently there is heavy spanish influence in the phillipines, i never knew that.
The cheap books can also be originals with counterfeit covers. Covers are sent back to the publisher as proof that the book has been destroyed. Consequently you can buy many real books without covers, or with fake covers, all over India, with very cheap prices.
Good luck to brick and mortar book stores. This is a further problem for commercial real estate, and the tens of thousands of physical book stores. And we haven't even started to talk about the Kindle - and over a million FREE books that have gone off copyright (I'm gonna get Ben Franklin's autobiography on the new Kindle - listed price = $0.00). Going to the bookstore is both harder AND more expensive.
These books are printed legally in India under copyright. Contrary to the misinformation you're being fed they are not counterfeit and are primarily intended for sale to the Indian market and surrounding areas.