Fornewly published books, the hardcover usually comes first. then it’s an excruciating wait for the cheapest paperback that won’t break the bank. As someone who is obsessed with making my bookshelf look aesthetically pleasing, I hate combining paperbacks and hardcovers in a series – they need to look uniform. therefore, I will normally wait patiently for the paperback. worse is when the cover is redesigned mid-series, but that’s a rant for another day. It sounds pretty sad, I know. However, I don’t have the money to finance my book addiction if I had to buy hardcover books, so second-hand bookstores are, or were (thanks Ferguson and Boris), my lifeline.
It stands to reason that hardcovers cost more. Mass-market hardcover books come out first, and the higher price helps make more money from sales. Authors must somehow turn a profit in a notoriously difficult industry to become a top seller. We’re willing to pay more for hardcover books for several reasons. individually we have attributed a subjective value to hardcover books rather than paperbacks. As more people hold this view, value becomes a collective value, a shared psychological conception of the value of a hardcover versus a paperback. we can assess the robustness, we can assess how at first it is newer and then older, maybe even a first edition.
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There is also the issue of time preference; do you mind paying more to read it again or are you willing to wait up to a year to get the cheapest paperback?
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Marketing is key to influencing the prices we consider permissible for a book. Hardcover books can have fancier covers, be more durable, and have a dust jacket to protect them. there is also the question of time preference; do you mind paying more to read it again or are you willing to wait up to a year to get the cheapest paperback? the price of books is a rather special window into the interesting world of price economics.
This also applies to academic texts. both paperbacks and hardcovers are more expensive than books for the general public due to extremely limited demand, the time preference of needing the newest scholarship for university libraries, and all compounded by the monopolistic behavior of the editors. a significant problem, especially, as I explored above, for academic eBooks. For reasons of basic economics along with the behavior of publishers, we have resigned ourselves to the idea that academic texts will cost you your firstborn child and your left leg.
Old books are also better than new ones, both in content and in their hidden secrets, which is why I find it much more rewarding to browse second-hand bookstores
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Even when the paperback is available, the hardcover costs more if it’s still in print. we place more value on the binding than on our time preference. hence the bindings and special editions cost so much and people are willing to pay. Take Folio Society, for example, where on their website books range from £30 to over £300; I only have second hand versions. Some of the books on their website are leather-bound and hand-bound, all of which are unmistakably beautiful collector’s items. its scarcity and ornamentation drive its price. Extras like beautiful new color images, new introductions and updates from the authors or publishers, and of course the beautiful new covers and bindings make the books beautiful to own and display. I could never pay full price as unfortunately I don’t have any money.
Books in general tend to be cheap these days. if you go to satan’s website sorry i mean jeff bezos amazon you can find new books incredibly low price anywhere from a couple of quid to maybe £20. monopoly on book discovery and sale allows that amazon forces prices to be what they like. In the age of buying e-books for a pittance, many people have switched, as it’s easier to get caught up in Amazon’s Kindle market with books for 99 pence or nothing. obviously the authors would love to see higher prices for more comfortable living, but they need to perform a balancing act, otherwise people would find them too expensive and not buy them. This is made even more difficult by Amazon’s prices and licenses.
When I visit stores like waterstones or blackwells (anyone else remember the days when we weren’t banned from bookstores and living full lives?), I may not buy anything or just a book. it’s a delight as buying full price books from there, going beyond £20, is untenable. Old books are also better than new ones, both in content and in their hidden secrets, which is why I find it much more rewarding to browse second-hand bookstores. It’s also an Amazon marketplace rarity that used hardcovers are often cheaper than used paperbacks.
For students, I recommend using library access at places like Cambridge University Press to pick up any book you like. get a pdf merge and your finds, while not the same as physical books, can come in at that £9,250 a year fee.
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