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| Murakami | |
In Japan, Kinokuniya is buying 90,000 copies of the 100,000 first printing of Haruki Murakami's new essay collection, Novelist as a Vocation, which will appear September 10, the Asahi Shimbun reported. The newspaper described the bookstore chain's move as a way of fighting "the emerging dominance of online retailers."
"The reality of the industry today is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for brick-and-mortar bookstores to purchase copies of high-profile new books," a Kinokuniya spokesperson told Asahi. "To rival online book retailers, bookstores across the country now need to join hands in efforts to reinvigorate the conventional book distribution market."
Kinokuniya said it will sell Novelist as a Vocation at its stores across Japan and will "distribute a portion of the copies to bookstores around Japan through wholesalers."