“The Great Book Price Bubble”
I have a very large collection of reference books on various subjects, but mostly history and languages. There are a number of books on my wish list that I have been unable to purchase because virtually every seller is listing them for insane prices ($450, $670, etc.). These are not collectible books or in most cases not even particularly rare. The only reason for the high price is because every other bookseller is also listing high. Yet the books just sit there unsold and this can be frustrating for a book collector.
I understand supply and demand, but every time that I have decided to sell one of my books that is listed at high prices by other sellers, I use the auction option since I’m unsure of the true uninflated value and I just want the item to sell within this decade. And each time the book ends up selling for my original list price, if it sells at all, which is only a very small fraction of what others have listed the book for. For example, I recently sold a book for the starting auction price of $55, when the next cheapest listing was $890 and I expected people would pay more based on the price of the other copies.
It seems that a lot of sellers must have many books in their inventory that will probably never ever sell at the listed price, but that could still be sold for 3 to 4 times their original value instead of 40 times their original price.
Just because everyone else has a book listed at $700 doesn’t mean that there is anyone who would actually pay $700, or even $200, for that book. Sure, they may be that one rare person out there that just has to have that copy of the ALF EPISODE GUIDE and doesn’t care that it cost $1400, but I think these people are rare.
Many books that are being sold for insane prices are available for free in pdf format and can easily be printed (either at home or by a printing company). While someone may want to pay a high price for a first-edition collectible, why pay $1300 for a copy of “Chess for Dummies” when you can just print it yourself?
It always amuses me (sorry) when there is a book with an inflated price and the seller won’t budge on price because “everyone else has it listed for XXX” and then a brand new edition of that same book will come out for a normal price like $19.95 and then suddenly their older edition is worthless.
Back in the day, one used to be able to find bargains on ebay. For example, a seller would list a copy of “Zulu for Beginners” at $10 because “who on Earth is going to want that?” Today, that same seller who finds a copy of that book at a garage sale will look up the price online (and who can blame them) and finds that the book is selling for $600 and thinks they have struck gold.
Sellers seem to get insulted when I offer them $50 for a book they are listing for $850 even when I know I’m probably the only person on the planet who will ever buy that book even for $50.
by MiaVisatan
5 Comments
Google Lens. Same thing has been happening across the board with collectibles. Elders in particular have a hard time understanding that not everything on the internet is true ….
Can you provide some more examples? I’m curious what kinds of books are drawing the attention of speculative resellers who seem to have overestimated their collectability. This is really of amusing actually.
So much wrong here. Your auction results show the floor not the ceiling. One auction with a low starting bid doesn’t tell you what a patient buyer pays six months from now.
You also say “that one rare person” exists while arguing nobody would pay high prices. For obscure books that one person is the entire market.
And you expected bidders to go above $55 because other listings were at $890, which is literally the same logic you’re criticizing.
“I know I’m probably the only person on the planet who will ever buy that book even for $50” is a laugh. They’re not listing it to $850 for the giggles, they’re listing it for $850 because someone in all seriousness will pay $850. Reference books, in general, aren’t going to get good sales so you might as well squeeze as much as you can out of whomever is going to buy it. I’m personally not buying reference books at all because I can find all of it for $0 on the internet, I don’t need to spend even $50 to find that information. You and I aren’t the target audience and never will be.
It used to be possible to make a living as a writer, that’s incredibly rare these days. Text books require an immense amount of work to research, write, check and get into the market. Because these books are never going to sells tens of thousands of copies the only chance a publisher has to recoup their costs is to sell it at such a price. This price is also passed on to book sellers and with academic books it’s not always possible for them to get refunded for returns (eg with Ingram Spark).
You think this book has a tiny market and the price is too high? Fine, don’t buy the book. It does have a tiny market but the price is set appropriately. If these booksellers start undercutting each other they’ll not only make a loss but they also are killing the future market for that niche topic.
Writers deserve to get paid. If you care enough about the content you should respect the work that went into it.