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

[Suteleynot]

I’ve just been browsing the new books due to be released next year. Hardbacks are now 22 pounds????!!!

I know hardbacks have always been pricey especially when new but I am almost certain they were around 14-15 pounds only recently.

I have quite a bit of disposable income and I love reading but I cannot for a moment get my head around how expensive this is? It won’t be long before a new hardback will cost the best part of 30 quid!

I am paid close to six figures and hand on heart if I lost my job, I know I’d be worse off for sure, but not so worse off that I’d be devastated. In a way it’s quite liberating… I care less about keeping my job than I once did! What’s the point!!!!

I have only just seen this on Amazon so this is my very reactionary post to it 😅

Librsries/ second hand shops or reading on kindle. It’s like saying some chocolate is twenty quid so there’s no hope, hardback books have always been a rip off!!

Yeah, I went into Waterstones with a £10-12 budget thinking I'd be fine. First two paperbacks £15, £17. Coffee table hard backs (always expensive I know but still) £22, £27. Gave up, went to the local books only charity shop.

I never buy hardbacks anyway - I don’t like them. Too heavy to read in bed! I’ll wait for the paperback version.

Publishers are IMO really sneaky, releasing novels by popular authors only in hardback shortly before Christmas, knowing people will buy them as presents. Presumably the HBs make more money for them.

Yes books, along with most very basic things, are expensive now.
Though why your post has to include the information about the very high salary you earn and the fact that you can afford not to work is beyond me. I don't see that as relevant to your point about the expense of books.

I use a kindle as well. I like psychological thrillers. Ive just downloaded 2 Daniel Hirst books at 99p each 😄

@Makemeanonymous because what I can afford and my perspective on my own affordability is directly related to the price of the book

Spent £78 in Waterstones today. 2 hardbacks 1 paperback and a moleskine notebook!

So many alternatives. Second hand book sites such as world of books, your local Oxfam shop, wait till the paperback comes out, or the library.

Books are so expensive, it’s kindle for me!

Sunak’s quantitative easing to pay for furlough is coming home to roost.

Sorry I don't really understand what you mean by this.

I bought the usual underwear and socks gift for a parent from a high street store (so not Calvin Klein boxer shorts or designer socks) and nearly died when they told me the price at the till. It was over £60!

I have bought the same gifts since I was a teenager and I had no problem affording it back then.

I have a chapter in an academic textbook that retails for £800. It’s a 4 volume set, but whenever I think about it, I laugh. I wrote part of the damn book and I can’t even afford it myself. Often the publisher sends you a free copy when it’s released, but I didn’t even get one or would have tried to flog it online for that price. 😂

World of books is mostly second hand. I buy all from there and they deliver fast too.

I've reserved newly published books from the library a couple of times. The wait was so long that in both cases, the book was out in paperback before I'd got to borrow it.

I reckon they only buy a couple of copies for all the county's libraries to share.

I used to own two secondhand bookshops , until we had to move halfway across the country, and I always had a number of clients who were voracious readers , like me . If I recommended an author to them, they would read one , and then usually if they enjoyed it , everything they had done . I had clients who walked out with 5 or 6 books regularly with change from a tenner . This was not that long ago .

Recently I went into a charity bookshop, and they were charging £6 for a paperback ! Now that did make my eyebrows rise .

I buy everything second hand but I've noticed the prices on sites like World of Books and rebuy.de and medimops (I live abroad) are creeping up all the time too.
I can't afford new paperbacks, never mind new hardbacks.

You also wouldn't be able to house and feed yourself though.

I really really value a high street bookshop. I would never buy on Amazon. I’m on your salary and buy a couple of hardbacks a year. I usually wait for the paperback.

Mate, on benefits your £22 would be your weekly grocery budget. I doubt you'd be on the street if you bought the book. Catch yourself on

I really can only afford to buy on Amazon nowadays. I went into my local bookshop last week and the book I was searching for was eighteen pounds. It was nine pounds on Amazon.
Its great if you can afford to support local bookshops but many of us can't.....

Do you like to have food to eat? A roof over your head when you are asleep?

I recently paid £22 for a signed first edition of Empire of the Dawn - well worth it, because I'm invested in that series and will reread it.

For me it depends on whether it's an author I collect and whether I class the books as 'trashy novels' (this is not a pejorative term!) - I tend to get those from WOB for £4 a pop.

Hardback books are luxury items. Just wait for the paperback or buy the e-book (usually but not always a lot cheaper than the paperback). Over half of books published on Amazon are independently published, and most of those will be print on demand. It's much more expensive to publish a book that way, so those books may be more expensive unless you buy the e-book version.

I still consider books to be cheap. You can buy a book written by a fantastic author from anywhere in the world and be entertained and educated by it for days, and the e-book probably costs £6 or so. And you can buy books which are out of copyright for nothing or next to nothing, including the greatest books ever written.