{"id":14860,"date":"2015-09-15T00:37:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T04:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=14860"},"modified":"2015-09-14T10:50:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T14:50:44","slug":"why-are-academic-books-so-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2015\/09\/why-are-academic-books-so-expensive\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Academic Books So Expensive?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

[Today\u2019s post is taken from one of my author newsletters<\/a>. It is a question that comes up so often that I thought I would share it here.]<\/p>\n

Many an academic author has had the experience of proudly announcing the publication of his or her new book, only to have someone ask \u201cWhy is it so expensive\u201d? I\u2019ve certainly had this experience with publications ranging from my first book\u00a0<\/span>The Protestant Interest<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0(original list of $40) to my\u00a0<\/span>edited volume<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0with Darren Dochuk and Kurt Peterson on George Marsden\u2019s contributions to the study of religious history (lists at $66). A number of my more recent titles are somewhat less expensive, because the press regards them as \u201ctrade books.\u201d Normally, only books that are regarded as having \u201ctrade potential\u201d \u2013 meaning popular sales \u2013 will be priced at $30 or less.<\/span>

Why is this? First of all, it is important to understand that\u00a0<\/span>no author \u2013 or at least no author I know \u2013 sets the price of their book<\/strong>. I know this personally, as someone who has at times appealed (begged?) for the press to set a lower price! The press makes the decision on the \u201clist price,\u201d and then retailers like Amazon decide how much to discount the book.<\/span>

Sales of academic books have been in slow decline for decades, so a purely academic title can typically expect to sell only to academic libraries and a few specialists in the field \u2013 maybe no more than 200 copies. The book may be a blockbuster contribution\u00a0<\/span>to its field<\/em>, and may even be pretty readable, but if the press does not regard it as a trade book, it will not be marketed and sold as such. Thus, they price the book at $40, $70, or even $150, because they are planning on selling mostly to institutional libraries rather than individual consumers. That high price is (hopefully) their way of breaking even.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
John Phelan, Reading Room, Langdell Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts. Wikimedia Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some might say, \u201cwell, if they did not price it so high, maybe more people would buy it!\u201d This could be true in certain cases, but with the proliferation of books across all genres, the \u201chigh price, low sales\u201d model is probably a safer bet for presses to recoup their expenses.<\/span>

Unfortunately, the choice for an author is often having a worthy book in print at a high price, or not having it in print at all (or at least not in print with an established press). Given that choice, I trust we\u2019d all go with an in print but costly book. As an individual consumer, the presses simply do not expect you to buy a $70 book. If your local library does not have it, the best way to get access to those sorts of books is through Inter-library Loan, an invaluable but underused resource at many libraries.<\/span>

Please stop complaining, then, to authors of high-priced books. It is not their fault. The best thing you can do about this problem is to keep buying high-quality books that are<\/em> within your price range. If we don\u2019t support such books, the number of sub-$30 books will continue to shrink, until the only choices left are the Dan Browns and Joel Osteens of the publishing world. Why those authors sell the most copies is another topic for another time.<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/span>Friends, you can\u00a0<\/em>sign up here<\/a><\/em>\u00a0for my Thomas S. Kidd author\u00a0newsletter.\u00a0Each newsletter will update you\u00a0on what\u2019s happening in my writing and the world of American religious and political history, and current events. It will contain unique material available only to subscribers, and each will help you keep up with my blog posts, books, and other writings from around the web. Your e-mail information will never be\u00a0shared. Thanks!<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Today\u2019s post is taken from one of my author newsletters. It is a question that comes up so often that I thought I would share it here.] Many an academic author has had the experience of proudly announcing the publication of his or her new book, only to have someone ask \u201cWhy is it so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,5],"tags":[34,2519,2518,1313,2800],"class_list":["post-14860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-thomas-kidd","tag-books","tag-expensive","tag-price","tag-publishing","tag-thomas-kidd"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Are Academic Books So Expensive?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many an academic author has had the experience of proudly announcing the publication of his or her new book, only to have someone ask "Why is it so\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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