Since I got back into reading novels in January, I couldn’t help but think about the cost of books these days. Whilst this wasn’t too much of a problem at the start – a combination of having leftover Christmas money, excitement that modern indie authors (like David Sodergren, Judith Sonnet, Carl John Lee and Harrison Phillips) were writing the sort of 1980s-style horror fiction I loved to read during my teenage years during the 2000s and reading novels more slowly than during my binge-reading phase in 2018-20 meant that this wasn’t really something I thought about too much at first. Even if I was buying new full-price books at a rate I hadn’t since the late 2000s.
But then I noticed that a lot of actual second-hand 1980s horror novels, which even six or seven years ago could still be found cheaply second-hand, were now often being sold for extortionate collector’s prices. Case in point, one of the books on my “to read” pile is an old large-print edition of Micheael Linaker’s “Scorpion: Second Generation” (1982). I got… very lucky… with this second-hand book and it only cost me about six and a half quid (including postage). Even though I don’t usually read large-print, it still seemed like a bargain. Yet, even five years ago, the idea of paying that much for a second-hand novel would have seemed comically expensive.
And, the day before I prepared this article in mid-March, I had seen a news article about the social media company Meta trying to suppress the publicity for Sarah Wynn-Williams “Careless People” (2025) – a memoir about her time directing the company. Due to the Streisand effect – something an internet baron like Zuckerberg should at least know about… – I found myself one of the other internet barons’ shops, reading a couple of sample chapters. Even though I’m usually a fiction reader, this non-fiction book was actually compelling and well-written and I was going to buy it…. then I saw the price. Even at a discount, the hardback was still a little under twenty quid! No thanks!
Then, on the day of preparing this article, I stumbled across this 2024 “Gina Lucia Reads” video where she talks about the cost of books these days. Whew! It isn’t just me! The video also goes into some of the possible reasons – other than inflation – for why books are more expensive.
One thing I would personally add, and which people in the comments on that video mentioned, is that books (as a medium) have less widespread popularity today than they did 20-30 years ago. Yes, the publishing industry is still going strong, even if they’re focusing more heavily on popular genres (at the time of writing, the popular genre seems to be “romantasy”), but books are less widely-read than they used to be. When things are more common, they tend to be cheaper because more people are buying them. Supply and demand and all of that. Although one irony is that, if new book prices are high, it will probably hinder more people from getting into books.
Of course, there are numerous ways around these price-hikes. Libraries still thankfully exist and so do second-hand books (unless you read e-books...). If you wait a few years after a book has been published, then the original hardback editions can – ironically – be some of the cheapest to get second-hand. You could even actually read some of the books further down your “to read” pile! Yes, those sorts of desperate post-apocalyptic measures might actually be needed at some point. Reading more slowly, 0-40 pages a day, and trying to avoid binge-reading can also both stretch out books and prevent the “I never want to look at a book again!” burn-out that can happen if you binge-read too much.
And, as someone who has been a fan of computer and video games since my childhood in the 1990s and who has never had a giant budget for them (seriously, I have only ever bought new release-day games maybe four or five times… and those were all cheaper indie games I bought within the past six years or so), I’m well aware that there is virtually always a – legal – way to enjoy a hobby on a lower budget.
Still, the soaring cost of books made me worry about people taking a chance on authors that they haven’t heard of before. Because, when I had the leftover Christmas money, I was eager to try out new horror authors I hadn’t read before. But, when that ran out, I sometimes found myself sticking to authors I’d read or heard of before. Case in point, another book on my current “to read” pile is a second-hand copy of S. J. Parris’ “The Dead Of Winter” (2020). I stumbled across several of her historical thriller/detective novels in a charity shop in Petersfield 2018-19 and, because they were sensibly cheap (eg: less than five quid each!), I took a chance and bought at least two of them. And I really enjoyed them 🙂
I’d be a lot less likely to do something like this today, given the cost of books. Still, having to focus more on the second-hand market adds its own level of variety. Yes, it’s depressing that only the most “popular” genres and/or authors tend to have the cheapest second-hand books, which is annoying if – for example – you’re a fan of horror fiction. But whilst this can be a limitation, looking for cheap books can also sometimes lead you to take a chance on authors you haven’t read before…. because you can get a good deal on one of their books. So, it’s “swings and roundabouts”, I guess.
[Edit: Actually, the situation with second-hand books isn’t as dire as I’d feared. Even on one major online site, I was able to get two small “hauls” of second-hand books for about £3-4 per book. The sweet spot at the time of writing seems to be mildly-moderately popular books which were printed during the 2010s – old enough to be cheap second-hand, but new enough not to attract the attention of greedy “collectors”.]
Even so, the soaring cost of books isn’t a good sign for publishers or readers. Whilst readers on medium-low budgets will, of course, still find ways to read – this isn’t really great for enticing new readers into the medium. Whilst reading being re-branded as a “rich people’s hobby” would be dreadful on a “Do you actually have a soul?” level, I’m much more frightened that the prospect of this won’t be enough to scare publishers into keeping prices sensible. Just look at the games industry. People spend hundreds on new games consoles or over a thousand on “gaming PCs”, and then the large games companies often now have the unscrupulous greed to charge their customers extra money on top of the £70+ that they have spent on a new “AAA” game, gaming is still somehow wildly popular these days.
Yes, as someone with a second-hand PC that was made in about 2012-13 – who only plays either old games or low-spec indie games, often bought during sales – I still play games. But I’m basically shut out of a lot of popular modern discussion on the topic. When I see modern gaming videos online, the “FOMO” can sometimes be almost painful. And it would be dreadful if this happened to books.
Then again, as someone who enjoys at least a few “less popular” genres (such as horror), I’m sort of used to this anyway. Weirdly, the “FOMO” a lot easier to ignore with books than it is with videogames. Probably because the “popular” genres these days aren’t something I’m really interested in, and because reading is a much more solitary and widely-diffused (eg: a “popular” book might only have hundreds of thousands of readers, a popular game might have millions of players) hobby than gaming is.
I don’t know, I’d have hoped that there would have been more of a point or a theme to this article. New books are more expensive, but second-hand books are still keeping the medium going. Increasing costs might limit people taking a chance on new authors, but if their books end up cheap on the second-hand market, people might take more of a chance on them. I don’t know.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
