"The chains have been very smart in their marketing and discounting message, but they've rolled back the breadth of the discounting over the past few years and the perception remains," says Carl Lennertz, publisher program director for BookSense, a marketing program for independent booksellers. "The other smart thing the chains did is put remainders in the front of the store, which gives the perception of sales throughout the store."

In recent years Barnes & Noble founder and chairman Leonard Riggio has issued numerous public proclamations asking publishers to lower their prices and was quoted in the New York Times calling some book prices "abominations." Epstein maintains that publishers are already squeezed too hard.

"The publishers aren't cleaning up," he says. "Given the very thin margins they operate on and the cost of doing business, prices are not too high. From the point of view of publishers, they're too low."

Besides, publishers are being pressured from above, as well as by consumers. During the 1990s many publishing houses conglomerated or were acquired by large corporations, which forced publishers to be more conscious of the bottom line and their responsibility to stockholders. To Epstein, this is exactly the wrong model for book publishing. Traditionally, the business was, he insists, never meant to be a moneymaker and should be seen as "more like a sport or a hobby. It was fun and culturally very useful. If you wanted to make money you'd go over to Wall Street."

"The book industry is not run the way other businesses are run, and it's unlikely it ever will be," concurs Albert N. Greco, a professor at Fordham University and author of "The Book Publishing Industry." "It's a creative industry. It's not like selling light bulbs. And publishers have been working that way in this country since 1639. I don't think it's going to change very quickly."

But according to Michael Cader, a longtime book packager and the creator of Publisher's Lunch, a Web site and e-mail newsletter service read religiously by many publishing professionals, book prices must change. He points to reports that indicate that the total amount of money being spent on books is stagnant while more and more books are published every year. According to Bowker, over 135,000 titles were published last year, compared to 119,000 in 2000.) Simple economics dictates that with more books vying for the same amount of money, there should be more competition and prices should come down.

"There's a possible paradigm shift coming up," Cader says.

Cader believes booksellers and publishers have "tapped out" the small segment of the population that reads books with any regularity. Instead of raising prices -- which can only go so high before those consumers turn away -- he argues that publishers need to work on getting more people to read and on making book publishing a growth industry. He suggests utilizing more free and low-cost promotional techniques, promoting mediums like electronic publishing, and developing long-term programs aimed at getting younger people interested in reading. He describes the average person's current school reading experience as "12 to 14 years of making people dislike reading or making reading boring."

Another way Cader's "paradigm shift" might come about is through the evolution of the entire publishing industry. Epstein envisions a huge change in the way books are sold as a result of new technology, specifically print-on-demand machines that can produce a bound copy of any book either while the customer waits or to be picked up after an order is placed online. With the elimination of the costs of inventory, shipping, returns and distributors' markups, the price of books would go down and authors might make more money from their work.

"The technology exists to bypass all that," he says. "That would mean lower prices."

Many consumers have found more immediate remedies for high book prices, however. Over the past few years used book sales have skyrocketed, particularly with the Internet making used booksellers' inventory more accessible to more consumers. And big-box retailers like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target sell huge numbers of discounted books. And in the end, for those who believe there should be no price tag on knowledge or information, there's always the library.

"Cars aren't free, neither are apartments or food," says Greco. "We live in a free market economy. Yes, books are important and play a unique role in the culture. But that doesn't mean they have to be free. Or cheap."

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