Are books too expensive?

[Fried Egg]

I was browsing a bookshop today and I noticed that there were not many books less than £8.99. Many were more expensive. It seems to me that the standard retail price of books has been steadily increasing over the years, in contrast to other media (such as CD's and DVD's) that has remained relatively static (but falling in real terms).

Another way that book pricing compares unfavourably with other media is the way that the price doesn't creep down after release. Sure, if you buy a film or album that has just been released, you will usually pay full price for them but it doesn't take long before these come down in price to a fraction of their initial price. This doesn't seem to happen with books. They might occaisionally be part of a special offer, but after return to their full price.

When I started buying books (over twenty years ago), books were significantly cheaper than buying albumns or films but now the reverse is true. Is there are good (cost based) reason for this or is the market for books simply less competative (and less threatened by piracy) than these other markets?

 

[iansales]

The Net Book Agreement kept the price of books artifically high for nearly a century, but since its demise in 1997 the price of books has been linked to level of sales and/or promotional strategy. Genre books don't sell all that many copies. In the past, they wuld have been subsidised by the NBA, but now they're priced to the market.

 

[Fried Egg]

I see what you're saying but why doesn't that apply to music then? Albums by smaller artists tend to be priced similarly to the main artists.

 

[iansales]

There was no such agreement for music. But popular CDs are still priced lower than niche music ones. The same is true for DVDs.

 

[nj1]

If this
Printers face sharp paper price rises as merchants pass on costs | printweek.com | Latest Print Industry News, Jobs, Features, Product Reviews, Used Printing and Packaging Machinery
is true then the price of paper is on the rise and therefore expect to see the price of books rise even higher..

Personally I tend to buy books new and find that new releases from book stores are very high, sometimes upto £18.99, if you hold on a month or so the price can drop up to 50%.

 

[chopper]

a lot is to do with bulk purchasing deals, for example: BMG may agree to fund a markdown of Leona Lewis for promotional reasons as long as HMV agrees to take a certain amount of another forthcoming release and give it Front-of-Store racking (and that one is purely off the top of my head btw). as far as books are concerned, i don't think the publishers think in the same way; i could be wrong.

 

[HareBrain]

If I get five hours of real enjoyment from a book, £10 is cheap. If I get two hours of boredom from a book and leave it unfinished, £1 is dear. The difficulty is judging in advance.

 

[soulsinging]

I don't know where you buy music, but I don't think the cost for film/music has come down at all. A new blu-ray is incredibly expensive, and even dvd's are around $20 here. Yeah, you can get old ones for cheaper, but you can do that with books too. The difference is that people will throw a few bucks at a crappy movie becos it's only a 2-hour time investment. Reading is nowhere near as popular and if you're going to invest, it's only going to be in something worthwhile. So there's no market for bargain bin books like there is for music and cd's. If you've looked in one at a bookstore, you'd know that the books that get sold there are sold there for a reason. Even so, albums by major artists are no cheaper than other cds and dvds are priced basically the same. When you those cheap, it's usually because they're either onsale or movies very few people want (kind of like how so much sci-fi fantasy is sold in mass market format, they're the book equivalent of a niche-market film sold for less). Led Zep cds are sold at the same price they've always been here, I don't know why you'd expect Graham Greene novels to be different. You can get one hit wonder albums cheap, but if you know where to look you can also get one-hit authors (think Oprah fad novels) incredibly cheap once the limelight has passed them.

I think it's also worth remembering where books are sold: bookstores mostly. They HAVE to make money on their book sales, which means it's tough to offer sales and discounts. Where do people buy most of their music and film anymore? Places like Best Buy or WalMart... these places use dvds and cds as "loss leaders." Basically, they sell them at a loss just to get people in the store where they're more likely to buy something they can turn a profit on. Bookstores don't have alternate big money merchandise that allows them to take a loss on individual books. But big chains can do that with music and movies. It's why independent music stores have become almost as rare as bookstores... they have to make all their money on the cd's or records, so they cannot compete with the low prices of larger retailers. The list price hasn't really come down, it's just that the way books are sold is very different from how music and movies are... so most of the places you see movie prices dropping is more due to the store being willing to take a loss on the sale from its "list price" than because the price has actually come down. Bookstores have to sell at list price though.

 

[iansales]

Most books are sold in supermarkets or at airports and railway stations. Books which are discounted or offered in 3-for-2 promotions are often done so because the publisher paid for the privilege.

 

[soulsinging]

Most books are sold in supermarkets or at airports and railway stations. Books which are discounted or offered in 3-for-2 promotions are often done so because the publisher paid for the privilege.

Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen anyone buy a book at a supermarket here... and I know I've never seen a book at a rail station in the States. Airports, sure. But they're usually sold by bookstores within the airport, so it's no different from a Barnes and Noble really... same problem.

 

[Pyan]

The big supermarkets can afford to buy huge quantities and discount them hard:

Paperback Books Chart - Books - Tesco.com

Personally, I'd rather go to a proper bookshop, for the choice and the lesser-known authors that they carry - the Net Book Agreement may have kept prices relatively high, but at least most authors were on a level playing field as regards sales opportunities. I suspect Tesco and the like are only interested if your name is Dan (Plotholes? Characterisation? What they??) Brown or Katy (Take me seriously! Please!!) Price....

 

[Fried Egg]

I don't know where you buy music, but I don't think the cost for film/music has come down at all. A new blu-ray is incredibly expensive, and even dvd's are around $20 here.

It may be different here in the UK but I remember buying new CD's for £12 or more over twenty years ago. I would expect to pay less than that now. That's less in nominal terms. In real terms (taking into account inflation), it's much less. This was at a time when a new book would cost about £3 or £4.

 

[soulsinging]

It may be different here in the UK but I remember buying new CD's for £12 or more over twenty years ago. I would expect to pay less than that now. That's less in nominal terms. In real terms (taking into account inflation), it's much less. This was at a time when a new book would cost about £3 or £4.

Like I said, I'm guessing that has more to do with the shops selling CD's than it does with the actual list price of a CD coming down. Like pyan pointed out, big stores can discount (even with books, it's just that most don't seem to bother carrying books the way Best Buy carries cd's). Most cd's are sold at big chains that can discount like that. I suspect if you went to a music only store (not sure what it would be there, but here I'm thinking of a Virgin megastore or Sam Goody) and tried to find a new cd, you'd find the price hasn't changed much at all.

Although there was a lawsuit here in the states a few years back where the music companies were found guilty of price fixing... so maybe prices DID come down in the wake of that? I just feel like, at least here, books haven't really gotten significantly more expensive in the last 15 years... maybe other media has come down in price (at least out the door price) to make books seem more expensive though.

 

[Connavar]

Books in Swedish are very cheap over £5,6 while english paperback are £8-11. The shipping,cost of making, everything is the little extra. Paperbacks are pretty cheap. Only hardcover are expensive to me and maybe 3,4 authors are worth having in Hardcover for me.

Books are really cheap if you see how much higher the prize has become for music albums,movie tickets. A paperback book cost as much as a movie ticket over here. 1,5 hour film or 5,6 hours of a quality book. Books are cheap to me.

 

[Diggler]

In Australia, a latest release novel is between $24-$35. Also a Hard Cover can set you back close to $50. They do drop down as the market wanes over the months, then you can pick these novels up for around $10.

The biggest kick in the bum is older novels. Philip K Dick (and most other SF Authors) novels retail for $22 from online stores in Australia, and around $25 in a book store. I can pick up the same novels from The Book Depository, CD WOW, etc for $10-$12

 

[J Riff]

The thrift stores are jammy-packed w/ cheap books. Literally everything Steven King wrote is sitting there. Thousand of readable tomes for a mere bagatelle, a pittance.
New books I dunno from. )

 

[Parson]

I suspect that books are not discounted like CDs in part because the cost of duplicating CD's is far less than printing and binding a book. Also CD's follow an unusual pricing structure, the biggest blockbusters get priced at Wal Mart for about $20-25, whereas the niche movies go for more like $40-50.

Are books too expensive? This is a question which can only be answered personally. For me, mostly not, I just shelled out app. $20 for David Weber's newest "A Mighty Fortress." I'm pretty sure I'll count it a bargain.

 

[Fried Egg]

Like I said, I'm guessing that has more to do with the shops selling CD's than it does with the actual list price of a CD coming down. Like pyan pointed out, big stores can discount (even with books, it's just that most don't seem to bother carrying books the way Best Buy carries cd's). Most cd's are sold at big chains that can discount like that. I suspect if you went to a music only store (not sure what it would be there, but here I'm thinking of a Virgin megastore or Sam Goody) and tried to find a new cd, you'd find the price hasn't changed much at all.

I would not expect to pay over £10 for a new CD in any shop these days, music only not, large or small.

Anyway, I'm thinking of the biggest book shop chain in our country: Waterstones. There prices are generally full whack and prices of older books don't tend to come down like they do for films and music.

 

[J-WO]

I think books are expensive enough for a lot of readers not to take risks. Which is a problem for writers who are having their first book published.

 

[Diggler]

The thrift stores are jammy-packed w/ cheap books. Literally everything Steven King wrote is sitting there. Thousand of readable tomes for a mere bagatelle, a pittance.
New books I dunno from. )

Yes the op-shops are a go for me. I can't afford to pay huge sums of money for a novel, and actually get a kick out of finding some dusty old copy of a novel or author I like.