How Much Should a Book Cost?
H ow much should a book cost? Some people get upset if a Kindle book costs more than $2.99. Some hardbacks cost $25.99. I’ve paid $100 for a text book that was smaller than most novels. I remember some romance novels Mom had with a price of 69¢. Today, those same books would bring about $6. I saw somewhere that the production cost of a hardback is only 50¢. The same source said the production of an e-book is $4.05. But e-books typically go for less than a hardback. Are publishers overcharging us for hardbacks? Are we paying too little for e-books? How can we figure this out. First, production and delivery costs shouldn’t matter to the consumer. There are a lot of people out there who think Kindle books should be priced very low because the publisher doesn’t have to pay to print them. In truth, printing is not the major drive on book pricing and there are plenty of costs for e-books that publishers must consider, but as a consumer, I have no reason to be concerned with that....