Why do hardcover books retail for more than three times the cost of softcover books?
One thing I've noticed while browsing bookstores is that hardcover books tend to cost more than softcover ones.
Oftentimes a hardcover book that's five times the price of a paperback doesn't have five times the mass of one.
Is it the manufacturing technique that creates this price difference?
Why do hardcover books retail for multiple times the amount of softcover books?
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Since many books are written based on an advance to the author from the publisher, I imagine there's also a component of them trying to regain that advance earlier in the sales cycle.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5513. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Prices of goods have nothing to do with cost of production. They are entirely determined by what people will pay for them. Goods that cannot be produced for less than people will pay for them simply do not get made.
Hardcovers are a case of market segmentation. You have rich consumers and you have poor consumers. To maximize your return you want to sell to both, but you want to charge rich consumers a higher price. To accomplish this, you find a way to segment the market so that rich people are willing to pay a lot for your product even though it is also available to poor people for a lower price.
This is everywhere. Organic foods segment the food market. Yellow label generic products segment the other aisles of the supermarket. Luxury badges segment the car market. Hardcovers segment the book market.
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