Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Right -- BECAUSE -- the cost of making a book IS NOT, nor HAS IT EVER BEEN, all that relevant to the price of a book.
The '70's was full of "we have to increase prices because...". There was gas, and sugar, and all manner of other "we have to increase prices because..." shennigans going on. Books were no different.
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Except that books went up way faster than inflation in the 70s, and have continued since.
I think the real problem all along has that each publisher has had a monopoly on each of the individual titles that they sell. So if you want the latest Stephen King novel, there's only one source for it and the price has been fairly close to fixed. That's driven the price of everything up, because for any author/price combination there's likely to be some number of people who'll pony up the cash.
That's seems a little bit like what happens with major league sports teams, where there's always some team ready to break the previous record when a big-name player goes on the market. After a few years, everyone is left scratching their heads and wondering, "How did this get so out of hand?"
Personally, I don't mind if the initial price starts out high because I'm happy to wait. But the price has to continue to drop over time to some point that's reasonable.