So, just out of curiosity, what’s the big friggin’ deal here? I mean, I can understand that once a book goes out of print, it’s harder to find, and therefore first print hardbacks should be worth a lot, but is it really that big a deal that it should send paperback printings through the roof? I recently heard about this book by Brian Keene called The Rising and read the first chapter online and thought “Hey, there’s a book I’d like to read.” Alas, the cheapest I can find this book, which last printed in 2004, is about $32 on Amazon.com…a good, oh…four and a half times it’s initial cover price.
Is it just me, or is that kind of mark up frigging ridiculous?
Not if they can get it. Evidently, the book is scarce and there’s a lot of demand for it.
Why? It’s recent, which means that there aren’t a lot of copies coming into the used market (most people keep a book for a few years before getting rid of it). Since it was a mass market paperback, any unsold copies were destroyed; thus the only copies available are currently in the hands of those who bought it.
The price will drop as people get rid of their copies.
It’s all about the supply and demand.
Let’s say there’s a book out there called The Big Book of Scary Things. It was printed in a huge quantity but it sold poorly. No one wants a copy, even after the returned ones have been destroyed there’s still piles of them sitting around. It may have had a cover price of $20 but since no one wants it and there’s still a lot of supply a used copy only goes for a couple of bucks.
And then let’s say that Stephen King mentions in an interview that he wrote the book under a different name and thought that it was his greatest work ever and was sorry it was overlooked. Suddenly those copies that have just been sitting around are gone. There’s a lot of demand but hardly anyone is selling. The price shoots up to a few hundred dollars for a used copy.
That’s an extreme example, but the kind of prices you’re looking at are not that uncommon for books that are done in smaller print runs with authors who pick up momentum after the book has been out a while. Few copies of their earlier work around, even in paperback, and the price on the out of print stuff shoots up. I’ve been through the same thing where a book I wouldn’t expect to be rare is demanding a high price, but that’s the way economics work.
I paid $40 for the signed limited edition when it first came out, read a couple of chapters and gave the book away. I would have tossed it against a wall, but it’s hard to mistreat a pricey book.
Horror fans profess to love the book. The turning point for me was when the tropical fish broke the glass in its tank, flopped on the floor, and started to talk. Zombie animals? Nuh uh.
I don’t care for gross-out horror anyway.
You do realize the basic difference here? The publisher who originally priced the book as $5.95 did not mark up the book to $32. The publisher is no longer selling the book. Various individuals (well, and companies, but not the pubisher) are now offering the book for what they think the marked will bear. They may or may not be right about this…depending on if you were the only one who didn’t think it was worth $32 or if someone else was willing to pay it and you didn’t get it.
That’s capitilism.
And so is BookFinder.com. It’s a metasearch site that sends out the request to a couple of dozen places.
Right now you can find a copy of The Rising for $4.20.
If I’m looking for a used book I always check there. Bookmark it.
I need to apologize for bitching about the book instead of responding to the OP. Sorry 'bout that.
I was trying to make you feel better in case you couldn’t find an affordable copy of the book.