Rise in paperback prices

[DrNefario]

If paper books are selling less, due to the rise of ebooks, then the average cost is going to rise. The editing, printing, distribution, marketing, etc will be spread over fewer copies.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's why I said "at least some of the increase", rather than "all of the increase".

Even then, we are told that physical costs are maybe 10-15% of cover price.
That includes not just paper, but costs of printing, binding and distribution.
So at the very most paper would be what, a third of that? (I suspect it is more like 10% of it.)
So even if paper costs doubled, that should only lead to a 5% increase in price.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Even then, we are told that physical costs are maybe 10-15% of cover price.
That includes not just paper, but costs of printing, binding and distribution.
So at the very most paper would be what, a third of that? (I suspect it is more like 10% of it.)
So even if paper costs doubled, that should only lead to a 5% increase in price.

Those other things have cost increases also.

Salaries, fuel, taxes, insurance, materials, infrastructure.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

So even if paper costs doubled, that should only lead to a 5% increase in price.

If you believe that the amount of money made by the people who are involved in creating books should never change, sure. But I don't see why that should be, even if the factors FBone cites were not in play, which they are.

The internet makes it easy to locate a used copy of most titles, so I am now unlikely to buy new. This makes new more of a luxury item than it used to be.

No matter what the price rise, rest assured that publishers will make tiny profits compared to successful tech companies.

[charlesatan]

Several factors.

It could be inflation in general (not just cost of printing, but delivery, service, etc.)

It could also be a change in the supply vs demand chain.

[sabredog]

The conspiracy node in me is postulating that perhaps the BHP's are getting in early by making up for reduction in ebook prices once they lose the DoJ case next year...

[eskimo49]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

If paper books are selling less, due to the rise of ebooks, then the average cost is going to rise. The editing, printing, distribution, marketing, etc will be spread over fewer copies.

That is of course totally true, however the publishers now have the opportunity to publish them as e-books as well, making the books available to a wider range of buyers, (with no printing costs to them), and the books can be always available without any chance of them going 'out of print'.

There have been a number of times when I've started a book series in the middle, and found that previous books in the series have been unavailable.