Here’s a quick quiz, no cheating.
If a hardcover book published by Simon & Schuster in 1972 had a price of $7.95, which price best reflects what this book would cost in today’s dollars, after accounting for inflation?
A. $20
B. $30
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C. $40
D. $50
Actually, it’s a trick question, since the answer as of this writing is $56. When I ran this experiment as a Twitter poll, I didn’t include it because I thought people would find it too outrageous. As it was, only one-quarter of the 91 people who responded picked $50.
The example book I am using is a first-printing hardcover of “The Confession of a Child of the Century” the overlooked masterpiece by Thomas Rogers first published in 1972 that I wrote about in a previous column, and believe me, it is no outlier. I’ve recently acquired several other books from the same vintage, and they’re all $7.95 for a hardcover.
Compare what a hardcover book would have to cost to keep up with inflation, with what full-price hardcover books actually cost. Here’s a selection of books I’ve recently read/acquired:
“Dinosaurs” by Lydia Millet, a short novel: $26.95.
“Grace: President Obama and the Ten Days in the Battle for America” by Cody Keenan, a personal recounting by President Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter about the period after the murder of nine worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina church, and the preparation for the speech Obama would give at the memorial service: $29.99.
“Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Beaton, a gorgeously illustrated graphic memoir: $34.99.
“The Last Chairlift” by John Irving, a nearly 900-page colossus of a novel: $38.00.
If there is even a $40 hardcover general trade book, I can’t find it.
Inflation may be the biggest story in the country these days, but it sure ain’t in new books, at least when you look at it through the lens of history. Consider the effect on your business if your chief product brings in almost literally half the revenue per unit than it did 50 years ago, and you can begin to understand how challenging the book business is for all parties concerned — publishers, authors and bookstores.
But it’s even darker for bookstores than the other stakeholders. Consider also that 50 years ago, the vast majority of books were sold at full price. Crown Books with their loss-leader strategy of 50% and 60% discounts for bestsellers did not arrive on the scene until the 1980s.
And today, of course, Amazon discounts just about every book. On there you can get “The Last Chairlift” for $26.99, less than half what an inflation-adjusted John Irving hardcover would have cost in 1972, when he published his wonderful early novel, “The Water-Method Man.”
The beneficiary of this, at least to some degree, is the consumer, who is paying less for books than they would have had they kept up with inflation in terms of cost. $50 for a book would make a novel seem like something of a luxury item.
But we also have to be aware of the effect of these things on the overall publishing ecosystem that supplies readers with the books we love. It is a tough slog business-wise up and down the industry ladder.
Now, you won’t hear my clamoring for a big jump in the price of books — it would be bad business for everyone — but any time I start to blanch at what seems like a high price for a book, I’m going to remind myself, I’m actually getting a bargain.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Magician” by Colm Tóibín
2. “Intimacies” by Katie Kitamura
3. “Night Boat to Tangier” by Kevin Barry
4. “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers
5. “Violeta” by Isabel Allende
— John G., Cape Town, South Africa
It’s been almost two years since I recommended Paul Beatty’s “The Sellout,” one of the great novels of this millennium, so I’m going to remedy that by suggesting John make it his next read.
1. “Hester” by Laurie Lico Albanese
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2. “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan
3. “Verity” by Colleen Hoover
4. “Shrines of Gaiety” by Kate Atkinson
5. “The Ink Black Heart” by Robert Galbraith
— Shannon M., Burnsville, Minnesota
Shannon is a great candidate to ease into the universe of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache. The first book in the series is “Still Life.”
1. “Grief is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter
2. “Shelter in Place” by Alexander Maksik
3. “The Italian Teacher” by Tom Rachman
4. “The City We Became” by N.K. Jemisin
5. “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut
— Paul T., Boston
I’m going to take advantage of Paul’s mix of real and speculative fiction to recommend a book that I think deserved more notice than it received upon its release, an inventive quasi-dystopian novel that’s doing its own, unique thing: “The Heap” by Sean Adams.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to [email protected].