Japan and France to me stand out as places where pop culture-y books are really fairly priced. And both of these are places where there are established printing formats that don't try to make the books huge.
Walking around in an Australian bookstore at least I am still a bit flabbergasted by how everything is printed to be huge, everything a slightly different size, lots of paperbacks with glossy covers etc.
Not that I think this is a "cost of materials" thing in itself. But it all compounds on itself to where now a bookstore is huge to have just some random nonsense, and people will probably buy 2 instead of 3 books.
I agree that books are probably not "too expensive", I just wish that the mass market paperbacks would be smaller more straightforward and less of a precious little item.
To anyone interested in this stuff and in Tokyo(... well, Saitama), the Kadokawa Culture Museum [0] is ... probably the biggest building commemorating a publishing house in the world? The pictures don't do it justice, the building is ginormous.
But in it there's a bit of a (corporate approved) history of Kadokawa built into the museum. Their core thing that found them success: standardising a small pocketbook format for printing their books, having almost everything print to that size, with the same font etc, and selling it at a low enough price that college students could buy more books than they could ever read.
Printing all your cheap stuff in A6 sizes mean you can have a _loooot_ of books at home before worrying about much.
eBay->title search->sort price low to high-> usually results in under $5 free shipping for almost any oldish book. Also for some reason the sellers on eBay are almost always cheaper (sometimes significantly) than their Alibris/Abe/Amazon storefront counterparts. Same with Thriftbooks, cheaper on their eBay storefront than direct, especially since TB raised their free shipping minimum...
The bigger problem for me is buying Ebooks without DRM, which are cheaper than the paperback. I see no reason why I should be paying the same (or often more) than the paperback version.
Just let me buy the ebook and let me own it.
Right now, after pirating it, I have to find the author's patreon / something and contribute some money that way. It shouldn't be this hard to give someone money.
At some point you just have to move to Ebooks. It's way cheaper (usually ~6x cheaper) and it's much more convenient, as you always have your entire library with you. Sometimes even in duplicate, i.e. on more than one device at the same time, in the same place.
I was very reluctant to make the move at first, as I love everything about physical books -- their feel, the way they smell, the cover art -- but I was accumulating too many, and finding space was becoming a hassle. The adjustment period was short, and now I'd rather have my reader over a physical book.
The only exceptions I'd make are for reference books that don't have good electronic versions on account of graphics or tables that don't render properly.
Never. It never makes sense to me, why would I want to carry around another computer to read? Why can’t I unplug and enjoy my book? I tried it, it sucked and management was even worse.
People should never buy an ebook which they cannot make a copy that is readable anywhere, extra steps required or not. There are so many disadvantages to even list.
This is a parallel story for me to vinyl / streaming for music
There are some books and albums I want as physical artefacts, their aesthetic and tactile presence in my world means something more than just the content, you're right, the smell, the art, their feel
Then there are some that are _just_ content, they get streamed and bought as ebooks for just convienence and consumption
I think an issue that isn't addressed is that books feel more expensive not compared to the 60s benchmark, but say compared to free online resources with comparable information. I'm defaulting more to online circulated pdf books and only buy the book when I have liked it and want the physical copy as a keepsake.
I've never been a big buyer of new books since they were always kinda expensive. That was especially true as a child. It is still somewhat true as an adult. The place where I notice the greatest change in price is in the used end of the market, and that is mostly because the types of places where I would source cheap books seem to be less common. (When I do stumble across those places today, they are just as cheap. Maybe cheaper. Yet they are also harder to find.)
That said, the bigger issue is likely perception. The value of a book is lowered by the free reading material you can find online. An ereader is roughly the price of an archaic feeling dead-tree textbook. The glut of books chasing market trends means that you are more likely to end up with chaff than wheat. While the great books may be worth their sticker price, the pedestrian ones definitely have to compete with those perceptions.
Using a 1960s book as a benchmark feels weird to me. I'd expect books to be more expensive when they come out and less expensive when they're the fiftieth low-cost reprint 60 years later. Sure, it's a classic, but it's hardly a "must-have". At best, it's something you need to read for school, although many school districts have dropped it from their lists.
Having said that, I think the complaints about book prices are mostly an excuse for preferring to spend time on social media or download pirated books for free.
Leaving aside the question of whether they're priced "correctly", books are cheaper than a Doordash meal or a computer game we buy and never finish. Would the average person really read more books if they were $4.99 instead of $29.95?
> books are cheaper than a Doordash meal or a computer game we buy and never finish. Would the average person really read more books if they were $4.99 instead of $29.95?
As a data point I'm reading some series I enjoyed the first 2 volumes of. I just picked up the next 7 ones because they were there and each of em were ~$5. Wouldn't have done that if they were $30, and I'm not guaranteed to get to the end!
> Using a 1960s book as a benchmark feels weird to me. I'd expect books to be more expensive when they come out and less expensive when they're the fiftieth low-cost reprint 60 years later.
Well it doesn't matter. Even if you compare to books that are newly published, new hardcover fiction is not $43-54. Typical is about $30.
The floor price of books is higher these days because the ordinary paperback is dead and and trade-paperbacks are the lowest cost option and they tend to be most of the cost of a hardback.
Two days ago, I purchased Timothy Snyder's two most recent books from a local bookstore for $40. (On Tyranny & On Freedom) What should be cheaper are school and textbooks. Those seem priced like a racket.
Boycott Amazon, Buycott Local and support your neighbors
Yes, I agree. Libgen, Scihub, Anna's Library, and Archive.org with de-DRM is completely free.
If the fucks like Altman and ilk can run 'pirate everything and sell the proceeds', you damned right I'll pirate without selling anything. And I won't even feel bad.
The professional pirates normally were charged criminally. Nope, now theyre too big to fail.
Many new trade hardcover books will not last that long. I work at a university press, and we still use acid-free paper, quarter-cloth bindings, sturdy boards, and other niceties that the big trade houses are increasingly giving up on. Guess what? Most of our books cost more than $30, or even $40.
Japan and France to me stand out as places where pop culture-y books are really fairly priced. And both of these are places where there are established printing formats that don't try to make the books huge.
Walking around in an Australian bookstore at least I am still a bit flabbergasted by how everything is printed to be huge, everything a slightly different size, lots of paperbacks with glossy covers etc.
Not that I think this is a "cost of materials" thing in itself. But it all compounds on itself to where now a bookstore is huge to have just some random nonsense, and people will probably buy 2 instead of 3 books.
I agree that books are probably not "too expensive", I just wish that the mass market paperbacks would be smaller more straightforward and less of a precious little item.
To anyone interested in this stuff and in Tokyo(... well, Saitama), the Kadokawa Culture Museum [0] is ... probably the biggest building commemorating a publishing house in the world? The pictures don't do it justice, the building is ginormous.
But in it there's a bit of a (corporate approved) history of Kadokawa built into the museum. Their core thing that found them success: standardising a small pocketbook format for printing their books, having almost everything print to that size, with the same font etc, and selling it at a low enough price that college students could buy more books than they could ever read.
Printing all your cheap stuff in A6 sizes mean you can have a _loooot_ of books at home before worrying about much.
[0]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G5U9S1dit2KJvEQVA
eBay->title search->sort price low to high-> usually results in under $5 free shipping for almost any oldish book. Also for some reason the sellers on eBay are almost always cheaper (sometimes significantly) than their Alibris/Abe/Amazon storefront counterparts. Same with Thriftbooks, cheaper on their eBay storefront than direct, especially since TB raised their free shipping minimum...
The bigger problem for me is buying Ebooks without DRM, which are cheaper than the paperback. I see no reason why I should be paying the same (or often more) than the paperback version.
Just let me buy the ebook and let me own it.
Right now, after pirating it, I have to find the author's patreon / something and contribute some money that way. It shouldn't be this hard to give someone money.
Calibre (though this is not so simple with Amazon ebooks since they disabled downloading books to your PC)
Is it hard to buy non-DRM books?
Well, if you bought Kindle, then I see, but... don't buy Kindle? There are plenty other options.
Where can I buy DRM free Anathem? The Road? Hunger Games?
Because you're primarily paying for the copyright. The cost of a book is fairly trivial
Not with paper prices where they are these days.
At some point you just have to move to Ebooks. It's way cheaper (usually ~6x cheaper) and it's much more convenient, as you always have your entire library with you. Sometimes even in duplicate, i.e. on more than one device at the same time, in the same place.
I was very reluctant to make the move at first, as I love everything about physical books -- their feel, the way they smell, the cover art -- but I was accumulating too many, and finding space was becoming a hassle. The adjustment period was short, and now I'd rather have my reader over a physical book.
The only exceptions I'd make are for reference books that don't have good electronic versions on account of graphics or tables that don't render properly.
Never. It never makes sense to me, why would I want to carry around another computer to read? Why can’t I unplug and enjoy my book? I tried it, it sucked and management was even worse.
Agreed. A bookshelf is great, and bookmarks are great. Cognitive load of using a tablet to load and flip through pages? Not so great
> At some point you just have to move to Ebooks.
When I can get a godsdamned file and view it on whatever I want with whatever program I want, sure. But I usually can’t.
People should never buy an ebook which they cannot make a copy that is readable anywhere, extra steps required or not. There are so many disadvantages to even list.
> At some point you just have to move to Ebooks.
This is a parallel story for me to vinyl / streaming for music
There are some books and albums I want as physical artefacts, their aesthetic and tactile presence in my world means something more than just the content, you're right, the smell, the art, their feel
Then there are some that are _just_ content, they get streamed and bought as ebooks for just convienence and consumption
I think an issue that isn't addressed is that books feel more expensive not compared to the 60s benchmark, but say compared to free online resources with comparable information. I'm defaulting more to online circulated pdf books and only buy the book when I have liked it and want the physical copy as a keepsake.
I've never been a big buyer of new books since they were always kinda expensive. That was especially true as a child. It is still somewhat true as an adult. The place where I notice the greatest change in price is in the used end of the market, and that is mostly because the types of places where I would source cheap books seem to be less common. (When I do stumble across those places today, they are just as cheap. Maybe cheaper. Yet they are also harder to find.)
That said, the bigger issue is likely perception. The value of a book is lowered by the free reading material you can find online. An ereader is roughly the price of an archaic feeling dead-tree textbook. The glut of books chasing market trends means that you are more likely to end up with chaff than wheat. While the great books may be worth their sticker price, the pedestrian ones definitely have to compete with those perceptions.
Using a 1960s book as a benchmark feels weird to me. I'd expect books to be more expensive when they come out and less expensive when they're the fiftieth low-cost reprint 60 years later. Sure, it's a classic, but it's hardly a "must-have". At best, it's something you need to read for school, although many school districts have dropped it from their lists.
Having said that, I think the complaints about book prices are mostly an excuse for preferring to spend time on social media or download pirated books for free.
Leaving aside the question of whether they're priced "correctly", books are cheaper than a Doordash meal or a computer game we buy and never finish. Would the average person really read more books if they were $4.99 instead of $29.95?
> books are cheaper than a Doordash meal or a computer game we buy and never finish. Would the average person really read more books if they were $4.99 instead of $29.95?
As a data point I'm reading some series I enjoyed the first 2 volumes of. I just picked up the next 7 ones because they were there and each of em were ~$5. Wouldn't have done that if they were $30, and I'm not guaranteed to get to the end!
> Using a 1960s book as a benchmark feels weird to me. I'd expect books to be more expensive when they come out and less expensive when they're the fiftieth low-cost reprint 60 years later.
Well it doesn't matter. Even if you compare to books that are newly published, new hardcover fiction is not $43-54. Typical is about $30.
If the price was the cause of people reading less, you’d expect to see libraries become overwhelmed with traffic.
I don’t read enough, but when I did I borrowed most books and only bought the ones I wanted to read again.
Summary: Inflation is a thing. Publishers on average get 5%-15% EBITDA which is lower than many other generic industries.
The floor price of books is higher these days because the ordinary paperback is dead and and trade-paperbacks are the lowest cost option and they tend to be most of the cost of a hardback.
Two days ago, I purchased Timothy Snyder's two most recent books from a local bookstore for $40. (On Tyranny & On Freedom) What should be cheaper are school and textbooks. Those seem priced like a racket.
Boycott Amazon, Buycott Local and support your neighbors
Yes, I agree. Libgen, Scihub, Anna's Library, and Archive.org with de-DRM is completely free.
If the fucks like Altman and ilk can run 'pirate everything and sell the proceeds', you damned right I'll pirate without selling anything. And I won't even feel bad.
The professional pirates normally were charged criminally. Nope, now theyre too big to fail.
I'm sure all the small authors trying to feed themselves will be very impressed about your brave anti-Altman stance.
What better way to stand up to Sam Altman than doing exactly what he did?
Can we get rid of hard cover books yet?
Not if we want them to survive in a decent condition for more than a couple of decades, no.
Many new trade hardcover books will not last that long. I work at a university press, and we still use acid-free paper, quarter-cloth bindings, sturdy boards, and other niceties that the big trade houses are increasingly giving up on. Guess what? Most of our books cost more than $30, or even $40.
Not at all.
Online DRMed or "streamed" books can be modified or deleted.
Its kinda hard (aka impossible) to edit or delete a hardbound book on my bookshelf remotely.
Plus old books have the best aroma and page coloring
The only one I'd want sadly is.. https://newandroidbook.com/