Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
One Ace Double I purchased in 1964 ( M-135 Space Captain by Murray Leinster and The Mad Metropolis by Philip E. High ) was 45 cents then. In today's dollar, that would be ~$3.66. How many new paperbacks do you see for that price today?
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There was a major change in the business model for books (especially certain genres such as SF&F and mysteries) starting in the 80's. Authors went from writing mostly for magazines and producing books that were a couple of hundred pages long, if that, to much bigger works. The previously mentioned Elric Of Melnibore, which cost $1.25 in 1976 was 160 pages long. The Dark Tide, book 1 of McKiernan's Iron Tower trilogy cost $2.95 in 1985 and was 303 pages long. Scales of Justice, one of Daniel Hood's Fanuilh series was $5.50 in 1998 and 297 pages long (but a smaller font, so I'm not sure what the actual word count was). Perhaps some people are remembering hard back prices rather than paper back prices, or perhaps books were simply more expensive in some parts of the world.