Hello Bob;
I got just a teeny hint that you have some knowledge of the publishing
industry and that you are quite happy with the present situation. I was
asking a serious question and would have preferred a serious answer - not
just a sarcastic one.
You didn't explain why the publishing industry's products cost so much more
than they used to relative to other common industrial products. You gave
me an elaborate comparison of then and now but completely ignored the
savings of modern industrial processes and the substantial reduction in
personnel which has taken place. You also failed to mention that the pulp
and paper industry has been in a slump for a couple of years now but no
saving appears to have been passed on to the consumer. (Here in Alberta we
produce a large percentage of the world's pulp and paper. Prices are
depressed.) You also didn't mention the economies of scale which result in
the dramatic increase in pulp mills and the competition resulting
therefrom.
You did explain that all costs have risen but you didn't explain how those
costs have risen astronomically relative to the costs of materials used in
other consumer goods. Again, I go back to my comparison of auto prices
which relative to 1955 have risen by a factor of about 10 - not the large
increase seen in books.
In a time when some individual book sales are numbered in the millions and
with a North American population of well over 300 million there doesn't
seem to be much economy of scale compared with populations 45 years ago.
Is there a smaller proportion of books sold per capita today than in 1955?
Computer processing must have reduced much of the costs of processing and
preparing text for print. Lead typesetting and offset printing have been
gone for quite a while. Decent paper, covers and binding have been around
for a long time now - at least as long as the period I am referring to.
I don't believe that the paperback consumer demands a Rolls Royce for $10.
I believe that quality is second to a good "read". I also believe that the
textbook consumer doesn't need or want a lifetime copy of a book whose
information is already obsolete at printing time. One of the really big
costs in public education today is the serious inflation of textbook
prices.
It's ironic that many of the most expensive-to-produce books in the
bookstore are those which are sold most cheaply. I refer to the glossy,
lavishly illustrated coffee table books which are found on the bargain
shelves. So many of them are found in stacks with low prices that one has
to wonder how the industry can survive if much of its product is being sold
as remainders or bargains. It looks to me as if a lot of profit is built
into the original printing so that remainders can easily be dumped at low
prices.
I invite comment and enlightement.
John
> Yes, I couldn't agree more.
> All greedy authors should be content to live on 2 cents per word, and
>that should not be inflation adjusted, since we know that talk is cheap.
> No books should be printed on longer-lasting acid-free stock.
> Paper should not cost any more, since we know that the price of
>titanium dioxide is much less than it used to be, and we know that the
>cost of cleaning up paper mills' waste into the rivers was really no cost
>at all.
> Four and five-color illustrations are disconcerting. One should only
>read books. A good copper cut is quite good enough. Photographs will
>never catch on.
> Binders--well that's a sorry lot. Why on earth should they use Roxite
>or better cloth, when they could reach back into time and use
>starch-filled cloth. Creeps, all.
> Typesetters--another sorry lot. Why, in my day, they loved to ingest
>the lead fumes from their Linotype machines. A pox on all these cold-type
>machines. From managment's perspective, it was much cheaper to have them
>die off young than to pay into their retirement funds.
> Sewing signatures with cotton thread was good. Cotton was cheap and the
>tenant farmers were so grateful that it was used for books that they
>could not afford to buy for their children.
> Horse-hoof glue was good enough for the books of the 1940s, since,
>after all, the pages fell apart before they fell out, or was it that the
>pages fell out before the paper fell apart. The deteriorating books
>smelled so good, too.
> Yep, today's book is a real rip off. The paperback that is printed in
>16pp signatures,lies flat, printed on acid-free stock, stitched with
>dacron, bound with an everlasting glue, covered with a better cloth or a
>PVC cover---why all this makes one want to find a good vellum scroll and
>start reading.
>Bob
>
>On Sun, 18 Jan 1998 13:50:04 -0500 mmcewen@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (John
>McEwen) writes:
>>The book is available from Amazon.com for $31.96 which is touted as a
>>20%
>>saving over the regular price. For Canadian purchasers it might be a
>>small
>>saving depending on the cost of postage. It would work out to about
>>to
>>about $45 Cdn. and if it is shipped via Purolator - which they used
>>for a
>>shipment to me - it would cost an additional $7 US or about 9.90 Cdn.
>>for a
>>total cost of about $54 Cdn. My last book came without GST being
>>tacked on
>>and, by Purolator, I didn't have to pay the Canada Post $5 "handling"
>>gouge.
>>
>>For someone living in a province with sales tax it would definitely be
>>cheaper to order from Amazon.com however it is still a hell of a lot
>>of
>>money for a book.
>>
>>Does anyone else feel as I do, that books have to be the single
>>biggest
>>ripoff, in terms of inflation, of anything currently on the market?
>>Look
>>back over the past few decades. Pocket books and other soft cover
>>books
>>have increased in price from the '50s when they cost 10 or 15 cents to
>>today when a single novel - admittedly a much thicker volume - costs
>>up to
>>$10.00. Inflation in the hundreds of percentage points is not found
>>anywhere else. Look at electronics, home appliances, booze, food,
>>automobiles, housing. Nothing compares. In 1956 one could buy a new
>>MGA
>>for about the price of a new Chev. Today a new Miata - closest
>>available
>>comparison in N.America costs about 10 times as much in today's
>>dollars.
>>
>>Booze is a real bargain, as are home appliances and electronics.
>>Housing
>>is still a bargain with increases of only about 15 times for
>>comparable
>>levels of housing - given the standard ot the two times. The cost of
>>fuel
>>is a real bargain with increases of only 5 or 6 times as much as the
>>'50s.
>>
>>So why are books such a scam? Why does a book which cost $9.95 in
>>1978
>>sell for 39.95 in 1998? The new Chev in 1978 cost about $8,000 versus
>>a
>>better-equipped, more sophisticated new car - with many more safety
>>features - at about $22,000. The book is the same book from the same
>>printing. The vast increase in book prices is not relative to
>>automobile
>>price increases and not justifiable when real wages have stayed fairly
>>neutral or dropped during the same period of time.
>>
>>We have also seen a tremendous increase in warehouse book stores, mail
>>order book outlets, on-line sales, and what would appear to be a surge
>>in
>>book demand. Theoretically with sales up and "bargain" outlets
>>proliferating we should be seeing dramatic price decreases. This
>>appears
>>to be the case with "bargain books" which are cranked out to adorn
>>coffee
>>tables and are produced in low-wage areas, but doesn't explain the
>>price of
>>pulp publications and serious hardcover offerings.
>>
>>The whole thesis is that books in the '50s represented a far smaller
>>portion of a daily wage than today. As a student, I earned about 1.25
>>per
>>hour when a pocket book cost 25 cents and a textbook was under $5.
>>Taxes
>>were insignificant and I kept nealy all of what I earned. Today's
>>student
>>is lucky to earn $7.00 per hour (in Alberta). The pocket book costs
>>at
>>least an hour's wages and textbooks cost a day's wages and much more.
>>Sales taxes and income taxes eat up a large portion of that small
>>wage.
>>Who's getting rich?
>>
>>John
>>
>>
>>>Trevor Boicey wrote:
>>>
>>><My local bookshop got a copy of "MG: The untold story" by
>>>David Knowles in.
>>>
>>> Has anyone read this book? Is it worth it? The text looked
>>>excellent but they only had it in hardcover at $55.95. The other
>>>thing that I was a little afraid of is that a lot of the book
>>>was about later cars that only the UK ever saw anyways.
>>>
>>> Opinions?
>>>
>>>--
>>>Trevor Boicey
>>>Ottawa, Canada>
>>>
>>>Trevor,
>>>
>>>This is a great book. It is the most thorough history of the marque I
>>have
>>>seen yet. It goes deep into the development of the cars, alternatives
>>>examined, the whys and wherefores of what finally emerged. There is
>>more
>>>detail than I have ever seen before that puts these events into
>>context with
>>>what else was happening elsewhere within Morris/BMC/Leyland/Rover.
>>All this
>>>is told with a nice balance between the details of cars themselves,
>>the
>>>personalities of those developing them and the car market in general.
>>Yes
>>>there are lot of cars that didn't go to North America - there are a
>>lot of
>>>prototypes and development cars and alternatives to the production
>>cars that
>>>never saw the light of day anywhere until now. There's a great deal
>>of detail
>>>on the development of the post Abingdon cars up to the MGF. This is a
>>great
>>>book that I would recommend very highly. The $59.95 price sounds a
>>bit steep
>>>though. I got my copy through BritBooks for $39.95US and I have seen
>>it in
>>>local stores at the same price.
>>>
>>>Kim Tonry
>>>Editor - MGB Driver - the Journal of the North American MGB Register
>>>Downers Grove, Illinois, USA
>>
>>
>>
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