Everybody is talking about the drop in prices in the music industry. But what about the publishing industry? Book prices are dropping like a stone.
The prices for lots of great used books on Amazon are in the $5-10 range. And I assume the publishers see exactly zero dollars from the sale of these used books.
I can only think of two good reasons to buy a book new:
If you are going to spend over $25, you may be able to save money by taking advantage of Amazon’s free Super Saver shipping. The used booksellers charge $3.50 to ship a book. You can do the math and see whether Amazon or a used bookseller is cheaper overall.
If you want a specific edition of a book, used booksellers do not always represent the edition they are selling accurately.
As it is, it seems the price for a lot of used books is still way too high. For example, Built to Last is $18.15 new from Amazon but $12.59 used. Why aren’t any of the used sellers undercutting everybody by selling for $9.99 or even less?
The price that a used bookseller charges depends on how much it cost them to buy the book in the first place. So, how much are used booksellers paying for the books they buy? If they are buying from large suppliers who are willing to shop their used books around, prices will be driven by supply and demand.
But if used booksellers are buying from someone who doesn’t care enough to shop their books around (e.g. me and you), I think prices are going to drop even further as soon as someone decides to become the Walmart of used books.
Half.com mitigates some of the pricing issues in the used book department.
During my years at college, I remember the bookstore would totally take advantage of students selling back their books. Buy it new for $125, sell it back at $12.
Someone needs to arb this market…
I just bought 7 used books from amazon for 33$ (i wanted three more, but they were over $20 each). with shipping, the total came to $75. And I have to wait a couple of weeks to get my books.
Living in Boston, I’m sure there is a used book store somewhere within 10 minutes that has at least 8/10 of these books. the total cost would certainly be under $75. and i could pick up my books today.
Walmart is the worst humankind has to offer. Its conveniences are at the expense of things I love.
What we need is for amazon to localize their used books functionality. I should be able to type in my zip code, go to my wish list, and get a list of local book stores that carry my books.
What amazon gets by doing this is keeping me on their portal instead of on whatever sweet ass open source solution eventually arises to address this problem.
If book prices continue to drop, and used book sales continue to rise, both causing profit margins on book sales to drop, how could that effect the quantity and quality of authors out there? Would the change be similar to what’s happened to the music industry since people started downloading music. Or would the effect be completely different since it is a different industry and medium?