WHAT IS A BOOK WORTH?
How much money do you spend on…?
one roll of toilet paper
a box of screws
a candy bar
popcorn or soda at the movies
one greeting card
tipping a waitress
diapers
baby formula
a pack of underwear
pencils
a gallon of gasoline
one dozen eggs
garbage bags
a book of stamps
vitamins and supplements
a cup of coffee
lightbulbs
hair dye
a pack of condoms
diet pills
a book that becomes your focus and source of joy or inspiration for weeks
Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen
chrismcmullen 
This is sad . . . so sad that toilet paper cost more.
Not if you buy the jumbo pack. 🙂
I wish people understood the value of an ebook. It’s sad that people will spend more on coffee and junk than they will a book. They want them for .99 or FREE! I gurantee that a writer worked harder to produce the book than whoever makes toilet paper.
Definitely, if you consider the thought, time, effort, experience, etc. that is put into a good book. The author rightly considers the book to be a baby, but so many readers value the same book about the same as a cup of coffee.
I believe popcorn and soda at the movies is almost as expensive as tuition at a community college. What does it say about people wanting to spend a lot of money on things with a one-time use, but get multiple use stuff for free?
Buy the tickets, load up on popcorn and drinks, walk up the stairs in the dark theater, and the little one accidentally drops the popcorn on the floor before taking the first bite. Yep, shoulda read a book instead. 🙂
Thankfully, I’ve yet to test the little one with a movie theater beyond a school field trip to see ‘Frozen’. Though he gets upset if he drops food on the floor.
Olaf was worth the trip. 🙂
He keeps waking up to look for snow and is sad that he can’t make an Olaf.
I wonder if it’s because books don’t provide instant, effortless gratification. “Consuming” a book takes more time than drinking a coffee and more effort than playing a song. And let’s face it — with the pent-up mass of writing released since self-publishing became cheap, easy and respectable, there are way more books than readers. Maybe devaluation was inevitable. (But really, does any self-pubbed author want to go back to the old days?)
Certainly, the low prices are easy to understand, perhaps to justify, maybe even to predict. But it still hurts to compare them to other products in the same price range. 🙂
Reblogged this on International Book Promotion and commented:
What is the worth of a book?
Thank you for the reblog. 🙂
You are welcome
Fabulous post Chris!
Thank you. 🙂
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog….. An Author Promotions Enterprise! and commented:
READERS – please go to Chris McMullen to make your comments 😀
I’ll be happy to read those comments. 🙂
Thought you might Chris 😀
It’s the sad state of affairs, I’m afraid. Books are worth more than all those things. But that’s just my opinion. 🙂
I like that opinion. 🙂
It’s frustrating for me as a book lover because I know back in the time of Jane Austen, books were coveted. You were wealthy by how many books you had in your library. Today, unfortunately, books equate a lottery ticket. Sigh.
Some of us, fortunately, still collect books and treasure them. 🙂
I’m going to fall back on that old saying, “There’s no comparison.”
That seems to be a good fit here. 🙂
GOOD EVENING CHRIS,
YOU made a very valid and valuable point The following responses were outstanding!
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you. Yes, the comments were amazing. 🙂
This is so depressing…it’s the holidays, Man. 😉
Should have put Happy Meal on the list. 🙂 Books do supply happiness.
The problem, I think, is uncertainty in the mind of the prospective purchaser. Of course a well-written book is worth more than a measly 99 cents of anyone’s hard-earned, but the reader doesn’t know that until they get to the end. Perhaps 99 cents is the price at which many people will take the risk they might not like the book and throw it in the ‘bin’ (I think you New Worlders call them ‘trashcans’). The solution may be an ‘honesty box’, whereby if you liked the book you top up the original 99 cents to an amount deemed appropriate by the author (just after ‘The End’), or you make some sort of donation that reflects your enjoyment of the book. In fact, your list, Chris, would look great on the last page of a book. ‘If you enjoyed this book more than items on this list, please donate accordingly…’
I tend to look at music for comparison. I pay the sterling equivalent of about 15 dollars for a record, maybe 25 dollars for an album (yes, I still buy vinyl). I know I have put way more effort into writing my novel than a musician puts into composing songs on a record, even if it’s an album. It doesn’t take 4 years to put an album together. I should be looking at a minimum of $15 for my novel, maybe $25, but here we return to that uncertainty. I know what I’m getting with the record, I’ve heard the tracks on some Youtube channel or whatever (in younger days I would have heard them live or on some radio station), but the prospective purchaser of my (first) novel knows nothing about it other than my marketing material. Talking of which, maybe I should start producing some for the launch in 2015, otherwise I’m going to make $0.00 of anyone’s money…
Yes, there is a trust factor.
The choose your own price, or feel free to add a donation, tactic has been used. It didn’t quite seem to work out, but the second option does allow for possible ‘tips.’ At the end of Hugh Howey’s Wool, there is a cool Q & A section, and one of the questions asks why it was so cheap, for which part of the response mentions that there is an option to make a donation. It would be cool if you could leave a tip for the author on an e-book purchase (but not if the royalties diminished to compensate!). Good luck with your book. 🙂
Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
Thank you. 🙂