Book Discussion Buying pricy books, rare or not - an author question

[subspeciez]

Sorry for the late reply, I got injured in an accident and have been focused on being able to walk again. No, I haven't read Svartkonst but it looks great and right up my alley. The lesser known and "smaller" spirits have always interested me and seem to be easier for me to access. Have you read any other similar works?

I have not, however I got the hanged god by Shani Oates but I haven’t started it yet

 

[subspeciez]

I’m kind of focusing on Scandinavian specific stuff while also practicing chaos

 

[neilwilkes]

Sometimes the author isn’t actually making much at all and the publisher is doing the pricing. I know that when people publish via Amazon, through the print on demand system, Amazon takes 90%. When I found that out I started actually looking if there’s a way to buy directly from the authors site before actually using Amazon. On the flip side, it’s an easy 10% for a book that is out there for all time now to be residually streaming income.

Which really just goes to prove what a bunch of utter characters Amazon are!
I recently bought a few PoD volumes, and tried my best to completely avoid using Amazon at all - my preference is for Abe Books (admittedly now owned by bloody Amazon) because I can specifically buy from actual booksellers, or directly in the case of PoD.

moving right along here, I agree totally that £50/£60 is peanuts for the sheer amount of work that goes into books like the Stephen Skinner ones and a large part of the cost is in the reality that these books are not exactly going to break any sales records, so there's that. But finding out as I just did that Amazon steal 90% managed to shock me and I thought I was unshockable these days (easily surprised, yes but still unshockable). When it's done well PoD can be a wonderful resource (think of the KeepSilence editions of The Equinox, The Holy Books of Thelema, The Book of Lies etc) but when it's poor it's really grim (Barret's The Magus & Casaubon's TFR in it's 2018 'Forgotten Books' facsimile are close to being unreadable because the print is so small and the margins are so wide) so it's Caveat Emptor with all PoD editions and I try to avoid them unless I know what I'm getting into with the publisher in question.
Another factor for cost is the old 'softcover or hardcover' choice, and speaking personally I would rather pay for the hardcover every time, and oddly enough with Abe Books I have found on oh, so many occasions that a second hand hardcover is often cheaper than a new softcover!!

 

[Morell]

As for research means, I can see buying procy books for doing so, not to be trendy or edgy however. So authors, when you write, what do you ask as a price per page? Also, as a magic student, should you acquire as much knowledge as possible, even if it means not eating by buying a pricy book?

Price of the books is something that really bothered me in the moment I found Ekortu's books in Miskantonic Bookstore for about 400 dollars. Similar price on E-bay, then I found that Ixaxxar, the publisher themselves sell them for 50 eur, about 70 dollars(?). How the heck publisher sells for 70, while in USA the store sells them for 400 and more? They overprice a lot I think. So it's not always about starving to get the book you want, but to dig through the internet to find the cheapest price and persist long enough to beat the search engines to submit and give it to you. Ixaxxar didn't show in the Google results until I specifically looked for it. Not to mention that royalties for the author are not going up when book is moving to vendor who raises the price. So pricy book does not mean rich author.

50 eur is rather pricy book for me, but handmade book is something that is not cheap, the materials, time... I know, I bind my own books too, on occasions. So it's rather reasonable. Too much is however too much and it is only the more reason for seeking through online libraries to get book for free, because not even with your best you cannot buy it.

Also, when considering if I should buy a book that costs so much... there is a lot of ther info online for free or in reasonably priced books that you might possibly collect from other sources all knowledge from that book possibly even without ever seeing it.


As an author I really get small percent... but I also buy some books from the publisher for basic price and then sell them for selling price to get little more from them. Signed books right from the author are after all interesting goods of trade.