The answer is on the upper right corner of the inside book flap (or at the lower right corner of the back cover of a trade paperback).
Books are becoming expensive. And people want to get their money’s worth. A book costs more than a DVD, so people don’t want to spend more for something that takes less time to enjoy.
Thus, padding. And it’s not just nonfiction. Back when I started writing, most SF publishers wanted a first novel to be 70,000 words (and any book over 40K words was considered a novel; some of that length – Fritz Leiber’s The Big Gime were published years back). Now, they want a minimum of 90,000 words. 70K or shorter isn’t grounds for rejection, but 90K is strongly preferred.
No one is going to shell out $20 for a 150-page book. So you make it a $250-page book, charge $23, and you have a shot.
Speaking of book prices, I wonder why so many fictions are published in hard cover first. So many people just wait the small time for the paperback to come out. Wouldn’t it be a smart move to just go straight to paperback some times? Where can I find info on the profit potential of flooding the market with lower cost paperbacks vs first release in hard back? (IME, paperbacks are 1/3rd to 1/4th the price of the hard cover editions)
I’m sure there’s something very basic I’m overlooking, but with the plethora of authors on the Dope …
Actually, if most readers aren’t willing to spend the money on a hardcover, but the profit margin for the publisher is higher (not sure if that’s true,) it seems like a great way of maximizing profit. Those who are willing to pay for the hardcover will probably do so, and then you get the sales from the paperbacks a bit later. On the other hand, if you only printed paperback, or published both at the same time, you’d get almost everybody buying the cheaper edition.
It’s one of those basic economic examples… a product is worth more to some people than to others… some will pay a dollar for that shiny apple, while to others it’s only worth nine cents. The challenge for a producer or salesman is finding some way to get the maximum money from both customers without unfairly discriminating against those willing to pay more… (and finding those consumers in the first place.)