To think there’s no hope anymore financially after seeing the price of this…?!

So you're saying there should be no second hand book trade 'because authors need an income'?

It's the same argument that people use about restaurants etc. The price they need to charge to make a profit has risen hugely so we need to continue paying it if we want them to survive.

But people only have a certain disposable income and most have to make choices about how they spend it. No-one has an obligation to support the choices of others to the detriment of their own financial stability whether it's by buying a second hand book instead of a new one (or using the library, which earns the author a small fee for every book borrowed, so it would be interesting as to how much the author earns from different ways of obtaining a book) or choosing to make their own lunch and coffee instead of paying £10-15 a day at independent suppliers.

With books there's also the resources/space issue. If everyone bought a new hardback every time they wanted to read a book, as well as the huge cost, they'd be drowning under the weight of books in no time. What are they supposed to do with them once they've read them?

Meant to say, I have noticed the books prices too. If there is a hardback book I really want I wait for second hand. I am also a big fan of the 99p Kindle books. I prefer physical books but prefer digital prices! However, some kindle book prices outside of deals have also jumped up, sometimes pennies behind a paperback, which makes no sense.

I paid over 15 quid for two slices of cake and two teas yesterday. I spend money without care and attention but that brought me up sharp. The pot of tea only produced two cups so it’s not as if you got a refill of tea. I am going into 26 with a more gimlet eye fixed on prices. The cake was nice but not worth the amount I paid. I see a lot of pubs closing down. People don’t have the money for £6 plus pints etc.

I strongly disagree about books specifically tbh – when you think about them in terms of the amount of pleasure you can get from a good book, then even at £20+ they are the biggest bargain there is. If you can spend 50 hours or more with a classic then we probably ought to be grateful prices haven’t reached £100+ yet. It would still be a great deal!

I hear you. I will wait for books to appear in the library or buy them later second hand. No such thing as a chocolate library😥😂

Online secondhand bookstore. We bought 4 books for price of one for DD recently. All in great condition.

If you’re able to, you should only buy second hand books by dead authors. Live authors rely on actual book sales to get by.

Hardbacks have always been expensive,
irrespective of whether you buy from Amazon or an indie bookstore. I suggest using Audible or Kindle if you can’t wait for the paperback to save money.

To be honest, if spending £22 on any kind of treat is a hard decision even on £100k, the issue isn't the price of hardback books, it's on your outgoings more generally. I am on a lot less than you (as is my DH) and wouldn't need to cut my cloth to afford £22. A friend of mine who is single is on less than me and regularly buys books!

As for whether a book is expensive at £22, I don't think it is really when you look at so many things (movies, theatre, prepped food) which costs the same or more but provides less hours of entertainment and can be shared onwards afterwards. Look at it this way, for the price of two movie tickets or two charlie bingham meals you can get entertainment for hours! Plus, per PP there are loads of much cheaper ways to enjoy reading. In general, everything is expensive these days, but i don't think books are worse than most things.

@Barney16 chocolate has gone up a lot recently as cocoa harvests bave failed in Africa due to climate change. Less product +same demand = higher prices. People seem to forget food actually has to be grown and weather impacts that.

Buy them second hand in something like Abe books - I never pay full price for hard backs unless I want to

I love books.
But this year as part of my getting rid of stuff campaign I have got rid of most of them.
Read stuff on kindle.

Books, coffee, chocolate, my three best things are much more expensive than they were. I don't remember ever thinking I can't afford them before. The irony of being on the highest salary I have ever been on and deciding not to buy a bar of fruit and nut because £3.50 is an outrageous price for a bar of chocolate is not lost on me.

I guess hardback books have always been expensive, hence paperbacks, libraries, charity shops etc but with net income of around £5k pcm not affording £20 for a book doesn't really make sense.

I know what you are saying. Prices have sky rocketed, I noticed it with the annual stocking fillers £2.49 for after 8s. £1.75 for Terry's chocolate orange, used to get them both for 99p not so long ago

You are correct, £20 is a really trivial amount for someone on six figures, its lunch at Gails, or a couple of G&Ts in the pub, or a trip to the cinema, if you can't afford this sort of thing on your salary you are doing something wrong.

Your local library or eBay are your friends. Why would you buy books new unless on offer

New books,especially newly released hardbacks, have always been quite expensive -why do you think libraries exist?

Thing is though do the books really retail at the RRP?

I bought a book for BIL - brand new release - hardback - £12. RRP was £22

Myself though, I only buy second hand books. I love nothing better then an afternoon in the second hand book shop chatting to the owner, getting new recommendations

There’s a hardback book that is available in America, it’s around £30, but add on the shipping, it’s closer to £60 😫, and I could actually be liable to pay customs or import duties (as I have been “stung” before), so that would bump the price up even more.

We did a food shop in morrisons yesterday - their prices have gone upp.

Much more expensive than Tesco (which surprised me)

Borrow from the library. Start using them. If not in stock I can usually reserve for 60p. I don’t like kindle books and much prefer the physical book, but at the same time it’s nice to take it back when finished and not to take up too much space in the house.

I'm pretty sure you would be devastated to lose that close-to-six-figure job. I wonder how much you think people on benefits receive? As for books, I almost never buy new hardbacks, rarely buy new paperbacks and only sometimes buy second-hand books. The library is free. (I'm not on benefits, by the way.)

I’m a published writer and I agree that the price of HB are ridiculous.

However. If you’re earning a 6 figure salary and can’t afford a HB - this is far more of an issue!

I think of hardbacks as an expensive luxury. I do a lot of my reading on the libby app. With a large extra screen set up, it's probably not the experience of reading a hardback but it's pretty good - it's free, I don't have to go out to buy it and I don't have to store it when it's read. I am very unlikely to reread novels.

Either your income isnt what you say or you are incredibly tight. £22 for a book is about 2/3rds of your hourly rate after tax. Is a hardback book really not worth that to you? If you don't want to buy it for that price everyone who reads books knows paperbacks are far cheaper and can be purchased cheaply on all sorts of deals.