Online Bookstore

[Angelina]

20 minutes ago, imron said:

The state won't distinguish and won't care.

 

I don't care about them, reading about Buddhism in America now (and civil disobedience). 

 

https://tricycle.org/magazine/anonymous-was-woman-again-2/

 

Anonymous Was a Woman 

 

Always ... 

 

 

 

[Lu]

If you do it, make sure you keep notes so you can write a book about it afterwards. That has a better chance of being a success than the bookstore itself.

 

Make sure you don't partner up with Chinese people, they'll get in much bigger trouble than you when (not if) the government shuts you down.

[Tomsima]

Best way to not get found out: open your book cafe, put small speaker by door with overtly loud trance musak blaring out across the lake, install big red LED screen above entrance with scrolling core socialist values, with party literature arranged conveniently at the door. no other compromises made tho...

[Angelina]

14 hours ago, Lu said:

Make sure you don't partner up with Chinese people

 

Clients and so on are an important part of any business, I will think about it. 

 

 

14 hours ago, Tomsima said:

musak blaring out across the lake, install big red LED screen

 

Haha there is so much kitsch around here, no wonder, all the good stuff is banned. 

 

 

[ZhangKaiRong]

The retail sector, especially book retail is not a high-margin business. It requires a lot of tied-up working capital, unless you find a solution with your suppliers (e.g. publishers) to finance you on the long-term. There are working models for it in Europe, in my country one of the big book retailer chains went bankrupt as they exploited the system shamelessly (they paid the publishers 120 days after they sold the book, which is just disgusting, knowing how badly financed publishers are). These models are all sort of stretched and heavily dependent on the full supply chain, making the industry sensitive to insolvency. To be honest, as a sort of startup business, I doubt that many overseas publishers would be trust you enough to finance your venture, you first need a track record to appear as someone who knows what she do and believes in it, and be able to operate it smoothly. So what you can do is put a lot of your own money purchasing the books (which is a hefty sum, as shipping costs to China can be insane unless you buy in bulks), trying to diversify the book portfolio as much as you can, and pray that your inventory will be sold quickly. But IMO there are too big odds against you.

 

You should conduct a market demand survey for the products you want to sell. Is there really a major demand for English-language books in China, even for prices higher than in the Western world? (because you need to cover shipping and build it into the price of final product). Isn't it easier for amateurs and first-time authors to publish their things online? I was studying in the end of nowhere in China, and most of my friends used their computer or smartphones to read unpublished books on the web. 

 

Also, in your first post, you just mentioned something that appear in failed business case projects in B-school courses, e.g. that you will be against any kind of censorship and will have a special shelf for banned books in China. You're literally saying that you don't give a damn about the regulatory environment governing your business. It just won't work, as you positioned this whole banned book thing as one of the value drivers in your business. Just think about it: you're in the car industry, and the regulator says that it's prohibited to sell cars that are under the emission standard. You have a certain demand for cars that are unique in the market, but those cars don't meet the regulatory standard anymore. In this case, you can't sell those (it's illegal); if you still keep selling those, you will pay a big fine. If you keep being non-compliant, they will take other legal steps against you, destroying your business. And I don't think that the country you're planning to set your business up would go easy on you, especially of you're planning to sell banned books from day 1.

 

You also need to think about many administrative stuffs. Yeah, you have a website, where they can order things. Who will process the orders? Who will be in contact with the 快递 firm, negotiate terms with them? Who will handle customer support? Who will be in charge for financial/liquidity management? Who will do the accounting? You definitely can't do everything on your own, because it's physically impossible, and for certain roles, you need to be qualified as per China standards to carry out your work. Every people you employ will need to be paid, which adds up to your already quite high working capital. 

[studychinese]

It wouldn't be self censorship, it would be government censorship. 

 

You had best obey the law.

[Zbigniew]

6 hours ago, studychinese said:

You had best obey the law.

Actually, Chinese law has little to do with any of this. Articles 33 to 41 of the PRC's constitution "guarantee"  freedoms such as freedom of speech, assembly, association, demonstration, of the press and of religious belief, and the right to privacy of communication, but these freedoms and rights are in practice witheld at the whim of the CCP.

 

You can read more about this topic here and here. 

[studychinese]

3 minutes ago, Zbigniew said:

Actually, Chinese law has little to do with any of this. Articles 33 to 41 of the PRC's constitution "guarantee"  freedoms such as freedom of speech, assembly, association, demonstration, of the press and of religious belief, and the right to privacy of communication, but these freedoms and rights are in practice witheld at the whim of the CCP.

 

Right. And the constitution of the Soviet Union was modeled on the US constitution. I think we can agree that constitutions are just pieces of paper if the authorities will not enforce it.

 

When I say "obey the law" I am speaking of the specific government directives. On a personal level I also think it is one thing to be a subversive citizen, and quite another to be a subversive foreigner.

[Angelina]

9 minutes ago, studychinese said:

subversive citizen, and quite another to be a subversive foreigner.

 

Where do you see subversion? What is subversive in freedom of speech?

 

I am interested in this topic in general, not only books being banned in China. For example, once I witnessed one foreign embassy censoring one student newspaper in my country of citizenship. China had nothing to do with that, two completely different countries. What bothered me about it was the fact that the embassy in question was supporting that newspaper in the name of strengthening civil participation and they censored them. Very hypocritical. Can you imagine? I have not seen anything like that in China. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[studychinese]

2 minutes ago, Angelina said:

Where do you see subversion? What is subversive in freedom of speech?

 

If there were full freedom of speech we wouldn't be talking subversion.

 

If the banned works you are talking about are foreign works of no direct interest to the Chinese government there won't be any problems. If you are to be a purveyor of works critical of the Chinese government the result will be entirely predictable.

[Lu]

If you believe that China has freedom of speech, then there are no banned books in China. Then what exactly are you planning to sell in this bookstore?

[Angelina]

There are banned books in China, also, there are banned books in other countries. I am interested in the topic called banned books. 

 

Like this:

 

http://lithub.com/they-tried-to-ban-fahrenheit-451-and-replace-it-with-my-book/

 

Quote

This kind of book-banning effort isn’t unusual, but this one was a gut punch. Why? Because the parent organizing the banning effort suggested that Bradbury’s work should be replaced with something more acceptable to her.

Among her suggestions for more “suitable” material: my own dystopian novel, When the English Fall.

I cannot imagine receiving a more troubling and heartbreaking endorsement.

 

 

 

[imron]

27 minutes ago, Angelina said:

What is subversive in freedom of speech?

Quite a few things according to the Chinese government, hence the reason so much of the Internet is blocked in China.

[Angelina]

3 minutes ago, imron said:

so much of the Internet is blocked in China

 

Yes, but the ARPANET was an American military project. 

[imron]

How is that relevant to the discussion at hand?  The sites China blocks have nothing to do with ARPANET or any military application, but rather because they allow largely free and uncensored communication between people.

[Lu]

16 minutes ago, Angelina said:

Yes, but the ARPANET was an American military project.

Your point being?

[Angelina]

It has everything to do with the ARPANET. First of all, the Chinese government is able to block those sites (they can, I am not saying that they should). How did this happen? It is disrespectful to the students who died in 1989 to disregard the history of the Internet. 

The Internet is connected with the ARPANET and the ARPANET is connected with American military. You cannot disregard history. 

 

Edit:

I am done here. You guys are clearly picking a side. The side of those who killed the person who meant the most to the person who meant the most to me. 

Read about the Greek Civil War! 

I do not have to apologize for being alive despite what your governments are doing! 

 

[roddy]

4 minutes ago, Angelina said:

You cannot disregard history. 

Yeah, that's Angelina's job.

[Angelina]

How can you talk about freedom of speech on the Internet without looking at how the Internet came to be (ARPANET = MILITARY)? 

[imron]

I'll repeat what I said above, the Chinese blocking of various sites (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) has absolutely nothing to do with ARPANET, and everything to do with the government being unable to control speech on those platforms.