Why do books cost so much?

me ^ | November 19, 2001 | Me

[JoeSchem]

Anyone else notice that the price of books is getting absurd? I mean, a paperback that sold for $.50 in the seventies will now go for $7 or $8. That's way out of line with the general inflation rate.

Then you've got the 'trade' paperbacks, which run to $14 on average. It's been a long time since I've bought a new hard cover, but I believe they're going for $25 on average.

It's the free market -- or is it? You would think that the Computer Revolution would drive down the cost of publication, but it seems to be going the other way!

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

The cost of paper has doubled several times over the last few years. Tree huggers have insured that the cost of paper products are so high we can not afford them anymore. The saving of the spotted owl caused the first doubling of the price of paper and ever species we save the forest for raises the prices even more!

[rightofrush]

How about your average $100 college textbook?

I believe you. When my son showed me a price tag of a text book needed for one of his Physics classes was about $100, it seemed absurd.
That was 25 years ago, for a graduate level course.
I remmember most of my text books were under $10 (class of '59).

[rightofrush]

Mental error. Make that 15 years ago.

[Jeff Head]

Mine is right at 170,000 words and about 970,000 characters.

POD was by far the cheapest, most reasonable way to go for short runs on the trade pepareback. Same price whether you ored one or three hundred. Traditioanl printing houses wanted 10-11 dollars per at runs of 1,000.

I did find a place called JustBooks.com that can do reall reasonable pricing for runs from 4000 to 10,000 so if I get to that volume and nobody has picked it up, I can have them do it and make good money at reasonable end user prices for both whole sale and my own web sales.

EBook sales (MSReader, Adobe and Activ E-Book) have been fairly good too.

Anyhow, it's been an eye opening and learning experience.

Regards.

[christie]

I'm curious at to what iUniverse.com is giving you for $14 per book. Sounds high. I own a book production service and genrally find that you can do better buying the services directly. Print quantity is a major factor, but so is choosing the most appropriate trim size, paper, the best printer for the print run, etc.

[stlnative]

The Hamilton Books is also included in the Best Buy Books Search Engine that I posted above.
Sometimes you can find other online bookstores by using this search engine that can actually beat Hamilton's prices,
but Hamilton Books is a GREAT place!
You can hardly beat their $3.00 shipping on the full order when you mail in your order in and pay by check.

[Jeff Head]

Lightning Source is giving me a really good product (of course I supplied the Press ready digital files) for 6X9 Trade paperback, 452 pages with four over one cover at right at 7.50 POD.

Was very satisifed with the proof and am receiving my first shipment against orders this week.

[christie]

How many pages and what trim size is your book? Prices seem high. I'm working on the "Clinton Legacy Cookbook" (due out soon through Free Republic) and I have print quotes for about 4.50 per book for 1000 copies, 6 x 9, 352 pages, paperback, shipping additional. The specs have since changed, but this is an example of one print quote.

By the way, congratulations on your book. I'll order one soon.

[christie]

That was quick. You answered my question before I asked.

[NewLand]

You are on target and have some good info...there are a few other issues on the print side worth noting:

The US Book Printing industry has consolidated significantly over the past 10 years. There are now merely a realtive few major players (RR Donnelley, Quebecor, Banta are the largest) with some smaller companies struggling to survive the cost of re-tooling to digital processes.

Another event has been the consolidation of what once were separate businesses that did text printing (b&w) only or covers (color) only. The cover printers now print text and vice versa for the text guys. This industry is a classic model of vertical integration, as more and more functions reside under one roof (the printer) as opposed to various separate specialties like typesetting (now an archaic term) and bindery and fulfillment.

The result has been an overall reduction of manufacturing costs at the printer sites. This has required significant capital investment and thus has separated the big companies from the small. They have no choice but to drive costs down in order to compete with non-print options. The transition to fully digital processes (MS Word from author to PDF at the publisher or printer to digital platemaking without film) will spread out the overall manufacturing costs more evenly over the life of the book. This process (particularly the adoption of PDF) has allowed the printer to also be the provider of e-books for the publisher. A very efficient process is evolving, indeed.

All those who blame this on paper costs know not of what they speak...the cost of paper has not doubled. It experiences ups and downs like any commodity and has been down as much as up over the past several years. Just ask any International Paper stockholder.

The biggest increase in costs resides at the distribution and retail levels...it costs a lot to support all that brick and mortar...not to mention the latte machines!

[MississippiMan]

I spend a huge amount of time online msyelf, but when it comes to reading for pleasure there's still nothing that comes close to the feel of a hardback book in my hands. I pay $15-20 per pop for hardbacks on a very regular basis and sometimes more. I try to catch 'em when they're on the bestseller lists because ironically that's when they're usually priced the best.

Never spent much time thinking about why they cost as much as they do.

MM

[Rodney King]

Thanks, I did't realize the campus stores had so little to do with it.

[Doctor Stochastic]

That's the case I was trying to remember. Thanks.

[Sandshark]

I have been in the college store industry for 20 years and the margains on books have not changed. The publishers are raising their prices at more than double the rate of inflation. The bookstore people I know are working harder to supply used books to lessen the financial impact on students. Another factor is the fact that the publishers are changing books more often. When I was in college, books changed editions every five years. Nowadays, it averages every two years.

[DrNo]

You may well be correct. (Reading a royalty statement is like reading US tax code!) I was speaking from an author's point of view.

In my experience, an author gets about $10 of that $80-100 on the sale of a new book, and $0 on used books.

The bookstore gets its $10-20 on every sale, new or used. The author and publisher gets nada.

[DrNo]

Another factor is the fact that the publishers are changing books more often. When I was in college, books changed editions every five years. Nowadays, it averages every two years.

Again, this is because the used book market has so drastically shortened the lifespan of a textbook.

There are virtually no new book sales after 6 months; it's all recirculation of used books.

[DrNo]

Nada on Used books, that is.

[firebrand]

OK, revised figures, this time from the horse's mouth: Cost of physically producing a hardcover commercial book: 10% of retail price; royalty: 15%; overhead (all costs not accountable to a particular book): 15%; profit (theoretically): 10%; retail markup at bookstore: 50% of retail price (100% markup).

Most of the cost of production is paper. The price of paper went up several years ago but is now flat, as is the rest of production cost, mostly because of increased efficiencies. In my original figures, I confused % of retail price with % of publisher's cost, so since the publisher's cost is 40% of the retail price, production is 25% of that, or 10% of retail price.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

My pet peeve. I went to Barnes and Noble this weekend to look for two conservative books. One was "The New Thought Police" by Tammy Bruce and one was "Radical Son" by David Horowitz. B & N didn't have either, although the Bruce title is new and current and the Horowitz title is fairly well known. I read once where the CEO of B & N was a left-winger and a friend of the clintons. I couldn't help wondering if politics as well as business plays a role in what the big stores stock. Well, too bad for B & N, I ordered through Amazon, and the Horowitz was on their used list for $3.75. Did get to read a book for free while sitting in B & N, only paid for a cup of coffee, they don't mind a bit.

[Sandshark]

There are virtually no new book sales after 6 months

Blaming new editions on used books is a typical publisher's excuse. Used books have be around forever and there has not been an increase in used book sales in the college industry. A very well run text department only sells around 20-25 percent used. Some students want to buy new books. What there has been an increase in is students sharing or copying textbooks because of the price of textbooks.