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!

[CatoRenasci]

Well, for those to whom thinking is an alien concept, new age quasi-occult studies (the real thing would be too hard) are philosophical works of great power and difficutly. They'd be better off sticking with A.E. Houseman and ale:

...Ale, man Ale's stuff to drink
for fellows whom it hurts to think.....

Heaven forbid that the person who thinks Norman Vincent Peale (I date myself) profound would find him(or her)self face to face with Bertrand Russell's Unpopular Essays [Some words which might be beyond an unusually stupid child of ten admitted the author] or Hegel or Nietzsche. My goodness, what would they make of Hume? Berkeley? [When I see a red patch, is it really a red patch?] Cheers!

[MinuteGal]

I bought a complete hardcover set of Shakespeare's plays (several volumes) for two bucks at a neighborhood garage sale. Old books, but mint condition. Also have found sets of Poe, Mark Twain and other classics. I watch like a hawk for these sales. I love the classics!

Leni

[ChemistCat]

I will be delivering my best Why Books Ain't Cheap (especially textbooks) Economics 101.1 lecture in the morning, when I'm not so tired. Anyone who is interested in another Chemistcat Thomas Sowell Groupie Moment, stand by.

[firebrand]

One word: paper.

[willyboyishere]

The only type of book which justifiably costs more is a volume of poetry (for obvious reasons:no one reads poetry.) Only bestsellers are available at low cost (eventually) through book clubs, where they are sometimes literally free. For the rest, blame it on the Teamsters, other unions, and just plain greed. Much is invested in authors (advances, etc.) but mostly nothing is guaranteed any author the way it was in the old days. Only the "book contract" is guaranteed, which usually means a small limited advance, or a series of a few advances, then a percentage of loosely defined profits. Consider how much Simon and Schuster (is that the publisher?) is gonna lose on the foolhardy 8 mil. advance to HRC. After 9/11 the Clintons are finally seen by most as the irrelevancies they always were. The publishers didn't count on, and couldn't foresee 9/11. That kind of advance money depended entirely\ on the ability of the Clinton PR machine to keep her and Bill somewhere in the news as "controversial" people, whereas History has happily rendered them null and void.

[willyboyishere]

Don't ever try to sell books to the Strand. They offer virtually nothing even for high-quality stuff in great shape.

[hoot2]

"Why do books cost so much? "

books don't cost, its the $8,000,000 advance...she won't sell any anyway...

Audio

[Arthalion]

No, the price of paper has little to do with it. As an example: I just bought several reams of Great White recycled paper from Office Depot today. The cost for 500 sheets of bright white was about $6...if I'd wanted nonrecycled paper, I could have had it for half that. On the other hand, I purchased a 498 page book on building secure XML web databases from Amazon the other day. The cost? $55. I'd bet dollars for donuts that they didn't pay $6 for the paper in that book.

With this issue, at least, the enviros have little involvement.

[ladyjane]

Only the bookstores profit from this system.

Uh, some of the publishers are doing quite well too. I speak from personal experience(s) with major publishing houses. The standard royalty fee is 15% of wholesale. But there is a lot of fooling around with international sales that drives the percent even lower. Don't worry, the publishers are making millions!

[hoot2]

""Books don't grow on trees you know.:^))

how many trees must die for mrs bill klinton's book???

Audio

[firebrand]

The ppb--or paper, printing, and binding--cost of books has climbed steadily over the years that the materials, mostly paper, have become more expensive, and ppb now accounts for over one-quarter of the retail price. The bookseller gets about half. The royalties are 15% on hardcovers. That leaves 10% for everything else---overhead that is not part of the cost of the individual book, plus profit. Only when a book sells in great quantities does the publisher make any real money. That is why they pay the big advances. Everyone is looking for the winning horse that will pay for all the other books.

[Styria]

My dad, who runs a new and used bookstore, says that the Internet is destroying the business for used books. He was on the Internet years ago, and did well selling books, but now everyone is doing it. People call him, and want to know how much a book is worth, just so they can get a starting price for putting it on eBay themselves. Or they're just trying to get rid of a book that they couldn't get to sell on there. "Rare" books have dozens of copies online, and none of them are selling. And anything published after 1940 is now worthless. A book needs to be unique now to be worth anything. Even autographed books aren't worth much now; they need to be to a particular person to have value.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

You might want to shop Ebay or check with your local used bookstores.

When you buy from ebay, make sure you ask the Seller if it's from a smoke-free home. Otherwise, you'll get burned with stinky (and I do mean reeking!) books. The combination of an old musty book + decades of smoke = a very bad smelling book! (And no, the schmuck wouldn't give me a refund. It was expensive, too!)

Used bookstores are better because you can at least sniff the books before you buy.

[P-Marlowe]

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.

Youre wrong. Paperbacks did not cost .50 in the 70's. They cost between $1.25 and $2.00. The minimum wage during the same period was about $1.30 per hour. So you had to work about an hour at minimum wage to buy a book. You also had to work about 2.5 hours at minimum wage to buy a record album. Right now you have to work about 2.5 hours at minimum wage to buy a CD.

Also, the average fiction novel in the 1970's was about 250 pages max. Today it is not uncommon for a novel (like Stephen King) to run about 700 pages. Most of my paperback collection for 1970's books are a LOT thinner than the books being sold today. Thus, page for page the books today are a better bargain (however most of the stuff being written today is trash).

[ladyjane]

... a new hardback sometimes arrives at a local HalfPrice Books outlet, as a $7 remainder

You're right, the Half Price Books outlets are great. I just got some brand new Williams Sonoma cookbooks there the other day for Christmas presents. I think they were less than half price actually. I love those stores!

[Enough_Deceit]

"Yall are getting off cheap. My science texts cost $150 - $200 per book. It's such a friggin racket. "

I know what you mean. Having graduated last year, I have experienced this myself. Don't forget the professors who use a book that will be replaced the next semester. Of course, you pay full price for it because there are no used copies available. When you turn it in, you are lucky to get any money whatsoever because it was discontinued. Then there are the buyback policies that stink. When they buy the books back, you take such a loss that it is pathetic. Often times I would sell the book at the amount that the bookstore would offer to another student, just to be a stinker. Or I would give other books away rather then let the highway robbers have the business. Petty, I know, but it felt good.

[Seniram US]

Large publishers work on a 300-to-500 percent mark-up based on large prints and often having the printing done out of country. A hardcover book selling for example at $40.00 is wholesaled to the distributors on an average of fifty percent off. The publisher's markup is based on the wholesale price. However, small publishers are unable to compete with these manufacturing costs of the large publishers. Small prints cost much more and more often, small publishers print in the USA which costs more than in China, India or Mexico.

The cost of advertising also is extremely expensive as a full page color ad in VFW or American Legion magazine runs more than thirty thousand dolars for one issue. The country is broken down into three regions, East Coast, Mid West and West Coast. Advertising can be run in a magazine by region or the entire country, the latter costing the full price. Obviously, small presses can not afford the advertising costs in major magazines for a sustained period of time.

There are also heavy costs if a lot of photos (particularly color) are included in a book that raises the price substantially. And the initial typesetting is expensive, but this is a one time only charge as the negatives and plates are used for more than one print. These are just some of the costs that raise the prices of books other than the more obvious costs for overhead, lawyers, authors etc.

Usually a book, for the purpose of distribution and cost can be looked upon as a vase, with the neck representing the hard copy, the middle as the soft cover and the bottom as the remainder which is the least expensive way to buy a book. The average life span of a book (except reference books) is about six months before it passes down the neck.For example, Colin Powell's book initially came out in the winter of 1993 at a price of $23.00, later moved to soft cover and now it probably sells at a low remainder price.

[farmfriend]

Weigh in?

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

One of the best books I found on ebay was a biography on Trelawny (Shelley's friend -- the one who reached into the pyre for his heart). What a story! Trelawny was a pirate -- what an incredible life he lived! If you want to read a good swashbuckling tale that is totally true, look no further than Trelawny by Margaret Armstrong. You'll be daydreaming for days. And yes, his life was totally un-PC, which is why it's so fascinating.

(If you buy it on ebay, make sure you get it from a smoke-free home, and make sure it's not musty -- or you won't be able to read it.)

[Age of Reason]

Darn few bookstores ten years ago were even half the size of a typical Borders or Barnes & Noble.

I have almost never found anything worth reading--at any price--in stores like that one.

I infinitely prefer the adventure of browsing in shops that sell used books, and I rarely leave such a shop without at least one or two treasured bargains.

And I never buy paperbacks. Never.