“From Pitch to Publication” is a series taking readers behind the curtain of modern publishing as a business.
I already know what the price of my novel will be before it publishes next year.
Long before readers decide whether they want to buy “How to Kill a Chupacabras,” the publisher has already determined what the number on the back cover will be.
For readers, that number can feel surprisingly high.
Hardcovers that once seemed to hover around $20 now routinely push $30. I recently spent $65 on just two books. And special editions can cost even more. At the same time, consumers are weighing those purchases against Netflix subscriptions, Spotify memberships and an endless supply of free content online. A recent survey from the Authors Guild found that only 36% of people who read a book or listened to an audiobook in the last month bought a new copy (or obtained one through a subscription). Nearly two-thirds didn’t purchase a new book.
So, are books actually getting more expensive?
The (unsatisfactory) answer is yes – and no.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices have risen roughly 25% since 2020. Yet publishing executives say book prices spent years resisting the same inflationary pressures affecting nearly every other industry.
“Books, historically, have not kept up with inflation,” said Keith Riegert, president of The Stable Book Group. He argues that the roots of today’s pricing can be traced back to the rise of e-books. As publishers experimented with $9.99 and even $2.99 digital editions, consumers’ perception of what a book should cost shifted.
“The thing that e-books did was they artificially pushed down the perceived value of books,” he told USA TODAY.
The effect rippled through the industry. Mass-market paperbacks – once a low-cost gateway into reading – largely disappeared. Paperback and hardcover prices remained relatively stagnant for years, even as production costs climbed.
According to the American Booksellers Association’s research, book prices have increased slightly in recent years, though historically they have not kept pace with inflation and have had very modest increases compared to other goods and services.
“With the supply chain disruptions during COVID, it was the first time in several decades that the retail price of books started to move up,” Riegert added.
Yet readers aren’t imagining the sticker shock.
Daniel Greene, a “Neon Ghosts” author and one of YouTube’s largest book creators, said the issue became impossible to ignore when friends started turning down his recommendations.
“They’re like, well, it’s 30 plus dollars. Like, I can’t do that,” Greene told USA TODAY. “And then I saw the paperback was still going to be $23. And I was like, that’s nuts.”
ABA CEO Allison Hill acknowledged that value perceptions can be difficult because book buyers “aren’t questioning the value of the books, they’re managing a budget that’s been impacted by other rising costs, like groceries, insurance, and gas.”
The Hidden Economics of Book Pricing
For Greene, the concern of higher prices comes hand in hand with fewer opportunities for authors.
“I used to go buy five books – you know, three from authors I never knew, two from authors I liked. Now I go and I maybe buy one or two,” Greene said. “That’s horrible for the industry at large because it lowers discoverability of new authors.”
Another challenge, industry leaders say, is that readers often assume publishers keep most of the money.
They don’t. The margins just aren’t there.
For a $20 book, retailers typically take 50% to 60% of the cover price before publishers pay for distribution, freight, warehousing, printing, returns and author royalties.
“A $20 book ends up netting two or three dollars for the publisher at the end of the day,” Riegert said.
Those economics become even more challenging because publishing still operates on a returns system that dates back to the Great Depression. Bookstores can generally return unsold inventory to publishers for a refund or credit, which also affects pricing calculations.
Meeting Reader Behavior
At Bindery Books – an influencer-driven publisher launched in 2023 and built around online communities and reader engagement – executives say they think about pricing differently.
“So, we publish trade paperback originals, we don’t lead with the hardcover,” said Meghan Harvey, Bindery’s co-founder and president.
Hardcovers, she told USA TODAY, remain attractive but increasingly function as premium products. “Hardcovers are kind of a prestige buy, and they’re $35 a piece.”
Instead, Bindery focuses on lower-priced paperbacks because its business model depends on getting books into as many readers’ hands as possible.
“We’re trying to reach as many people and sell as many copies of a book as we can,” Harvey said.
Matt Kaye, Bindery’s co-founder and CEO, sees that as particularly important for younger readers.
“I think a lot of younger readers especially feel a lot of economic anxiety,” Kaye said. “For trying to generate as much social word of mouth as possible, making sure that e-books and paperbacks are priced accessibly is really important for us.”
The industry’s pricing pressures aren’t limited to paper and printing.
Publishers must also navigate changing consumer behavior, rising shipping costs and a fierce attention economy.
Greene argues that books are increasingly competing against entertainment options that didn’t exist in previous generations. “Now books are harder for people to read because their focus is shot, and they’re higher priced. And then the availability of every movie and every TV show ever is higher.”
Unlike streaming, he noted, books demand attention from consumers.
Madeline McIntosh, founder and CEO of Authors Equity and former CEO of Penguin Random House U.S., argues that today’s publishing landscape is less about producing books than it is about convincing people to pay attention to them.
“If I could wave a wand, it wouldn’t be about fixing an issue that is inside the industry,” McIntosh said. “It’s really the shared frustration for anybody who’s creating content.”
That competition increasingly pits books against every other form of entertainment, not just other books. Publishers are competing with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, streaming services and video games.
“You can’t sell something by telling people it’s good for them,” McIntosh said. “You have to sell something by telling people it’s fun, it’s entertaining, it’s inspiring.”
Yet despite those challenges, none of the publishing executives interviewed believe readers are abandoning books. In fact, many argue the opposite is happening.
Books as a Physical Expression of Personality
Kaye points to the continued growth of physical bookstores and the rise of BookTok communities that have transformed novels into cultural artifacts.
“Books are kind of the seed or like the source code of culture,” he said.
For younger readers who have grown up entirely online, physical books are a rare tangible object disconnected from screens.
Riegert sees a similar trend emerging.
“We’re in this analog revolution, where having the time to not be in front of a screen is a luxury,” he said.
That shift is creating what he believes will become a two-track publishing market. On one side are luxury editions with sprayed edges, special covers and collector appeal. On the other are lower-cost paperbacks and print-on-demand books aimed at maintaining accessibility.
“The market is really sort of splitting into two different sides,” Riegert added, “where you have the luxury side, and then you have the sort of entry point side to it as well.”
Nevertheless, the current pricing structure is likely to stay in place for the foreseeable future.
Greene worries that rising prices and the disappearance of mass-market paperbacks could create a future where fewer readers take chances on unfamiliar authors.
“The cheapest option for people who are struggling to buy is being replaced with an option you don’t even own,” he said, referring to e-books. “You can’t hand it down to your kids.”
But as Riegert put it, “Even though it feels expensive to pay $24 for a new (book), you’re getting potentially weeks of entertainment out of it.”
And unlike a streaming show that can disappear from a catalog overnight, the physical book remains yours.
Josh Rivera is an author and senior editor at USA TODAY.
Read the full article here
