To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 05:34:52 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Book Prices
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Wed, 04 Dec 2002 09:50:10 -0500 "Michael Walsh"
<MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> writes:
> Interesting article:
> http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/12/03/prices/print.html
>
> mjw
>

That is an interesting discussion of the economics of book pricing.  I
have a much simpler (probably overly simple) model to explain the retail
pricing of new books.  That is that books are usually priced to sell at
retail at about the same as what it would cost a consumer to photocopy
the book.  Then, given that it is clearly better in terms of quality and
convenience for the consumer to pay $15 for a 200 page factory bound book
than to pay $15 to xerox the same book borrowed from a library or from a
friend, the publisher is assured that practically no consumer will try to
make a bootleg copy by photocopying.

Ron Kean

.

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