The price of paper and ink...

My visitors and I are having a lazy Sunday afternoon, which means that half daughter and I are reading in the kitchen with the mob, whilst her mum has headed for a lie down upstairs (this maybe in part because from about 5 am this morning we were curled up on the sofas in our duvets watching the grand prix), so I thought I'd quickly blog about something we'd been discussing....

The price of "paper" books.  Books are a great love of both of ours - in fact we met via a book forum on the Internet some, erm, 8 ish years ago.  We both collect, worship, fail to dust books, though she now has a kindle she swears by (and sometimes at).  Anyway, as she prodded through my bookshelves this morning she noticed the shiny fairly new collection of books since she'd last visited and raised an eyebrow at me and asked how much had they set me back... mainly because she knows that for the last 18 months I've been on a book and CD diet only allowing myself to purchase one of each a month.

I was honest and told her, to which she gasped a bit, but not too much.  We both collect children's books, particularly GO genre, which can cost a fair bit as they are mainly out of print, however, these were new paperbacks, M/M genre and published mainly within the last 3 years books, cost on average approximately £10 each, which is, lets face it, is steep for a paper back.

However, these aren't books you can pick up in the supermarket, or even in most mainstream book shops... Amazon (UK) seems to put a premium on these books, in some cases for new books the dollar and sterling amounts are the same - making the UK equivalent about 1/3rd more expensive.  I've just ordered 4 recently published books directly from the US publisher, which even with postage will work out cheaper than buying on Amazon who won't actually have the paperbacks available to purchase for another 6 - 8 weeks.

Now I don't mind paying for a good book - The most I've ever spent on a single book (fiction - I've spent a lot more for certain non fiction books) is £35... but can prices of over £10 per book really be justified? Or is this just a way for Amazon to try and persuade us to buy a Kindle then fill it with the same books in e-format at a fraction of the price?

I remain in two minds about e-books but I am getting to the stage of resenting the cost of a non mainstream paperback ..... but I can't imagine not having books around the house, for me, books are one of the things that helps make my house a home.