Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
I think demand is elastic.
I bought the three Larsson books because they were less than $5 each and I might want to read them at some point. If they had been $10 I wouldn't have bought them, I'd have either got a library copy or waited until I actually wanted to read them and just bought the first.
In another thread someone mentioned a different translation of a book I like. It was $10, so I passed. I'm $5 interested, but not $10 interested.
Are there people who won't pay $25 for a hardback, but wait and pay $10 for a paperback? Yes, there are, so demand is clearly elastic there.
Do people read library books, or borrow books from friends? Yes, they do, so there are clearly more people who want to read the book than pay the current price for it.
I don't see any reason for believing that somehow books are special and don't react like other products.
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There is elasticity in demand, but there are limits to elasticity. Any product has a maximum
total market.
No product will be something
everyone will buy. Pricing will affect sales, but there will be limits depending upon product and market to how great the effect will be.
As a somewhat extreme example, an old friend is a dance historian. She writes on the topic, holds workshops where she teaches historical dances, and serves as dance caller at historic dance events. She estimates there are perhaps 25 people in the world qualified to discuss the subject at her level. If she writes a book on the topic, how large a market do you think it might have? We can assume people interested in the topic but not at her level might buy the book, because they want to learn more and get to her level, but we are still talking about a total market measured in hundreds of copies, and an arch typical example of a "niche" market. How much do you think pricing will affect sales?
As another example, a late friend was a railroad fan, and a lifetime subscriber to Trains magazine. He commented that the market for books on that topic was largely
not price sensitive. If a book was published on a particular topic, people with an interest in that topic would buy it. (Like, say, a volume on the motive power used by the Nickle Plate Road. Nickle Plate fans would consider that book a must have, and the only question would be when it would fit in the budget.)
How elastic the demand is depends on book, author, and subject, and may not be as elastic as you'd like to believe.
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Dennis