Is There Really A Book Price Crisis?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]So, Daniel Green, who if you don't know is a large booktuber, posted a video recently called The Book Price Crisis Exposed, which is honestly usually not a title I click on because they just seem a little bit too exaggerated to me. But I clicked on it because I feel like a lot of people have been having conversations about how expensive life is in general, including how expensive books can be if you buy a lot of them. And I'm going to react to some of his opinions on this topic and how he frames it. It's not really going to be like a takedown or debunking type video. I do trust most of the figures and stats he brings up and through a cursory glance they seem to be at least mostly accurate. So I'm not really worried about his truth claims, but rather I have some areas where I'll agree with him on how he's putting things and some areas where I will disagree. So, this is just a space where you can have any opinion you want in the comments about book prices and where we are and how we should think about them in this moment. So, the first thing he kind of does in his videos is go to Barnes & Noble and look at books.

[00:01:21]>> What I found was staggering.

[00:01:24]>> So, I am going to try that, too. So, Daniel Green does admit that this particular part of his video is a little bit anecdotal. Please keep in mind this is anecdotal. It's one person going to a bookstore and picking up about 30 to 40 books.

[00:01:40]>> And I think it's largely for a hook to get people to want to watch. But what he does is he goes to Barnes & Noble and looks at the back of 40 books or 40ish books to try to get an average price for paperbacks and an average price for hard covers. Now, he doesn't really give very much information. I kind of assume he means fiction newer releases because I think there is a huge difference in price depending on genre. I even think of like if you're going to do some sort of academicleaning history book that is sold at Barnes & Noble, I would expect that to be priced higher than an escapist romance book just because there's more that goes into factchecking and to doing everything to create that book. So, he doesn't really say what he does, but I'm going to assume newerish like last 10 years fiction releases because obviously books that are old enough to be in the public domain and our shelves of classics will be cheaper than what he's coming up with. Now, I'm just doing this to show that it could be very different and if it's not, then it's not. I guess we'll see. But, yeah, this is this is very random. So, I'm going to go look at different prices and then maybe I'll make a little bit of a nonsensical graph. I I I don't dislike Daniel Green, but the graph that he puts up at this moment in the video is very nonsensical. Like, is that is every point on that line graph a book? As if it's like an overtime, but it's calculating an average. I don't really get what this graph is, but I will do the same thing. So, I will say that that was a little weird for me. I don't really love going in public and taking pictures of random things and all of that, but this does seem to be a very common thing that people do for YouTube videos is you act a little bit like you're a journalist and you try to give a little bit of information that matches your topic. But as Daniel said, this is extremely anecdotal and it doesn't actually mean anything. The average that he got and the average that I got is a little bit different. His average for paperback books was $2147.

[00:03:47]Mine was $1910.

[00:03:50]His average for hardback books was $31.14.

[00:03:55]And mine was pretty close at $30.50.

[00:04:00]Now, this is just pointless. I'm not going to make a line graph like he did because I think his line graph is kind of silly and I don't know what it's actually trying to say. But I will kind of compare the two on the screen here.

[00:04:13]And then I will also say that it was interesting because I was going into the bookstore to look at this whole thing of affordability as everyone kind of wants to talk about. And the day I went in was a buy 1 get one 50% off sale because of the holiday. And I think this happens a lot with books. Book sales are actually usually pretty good. And I think that should probably come into this conversation. And I and I get the concept of wanting to get a book when you want it, especially if you're a big series reader and you're always wanting the next book. But if you're willing to wait a little bit and you know that delayed gratification can be a little bit hard, but often times books do go on sale. And I think that should definitely enter the conversation on affordability, especially when we're starting to get into this argument that books are somewhat inaccessible, which is kind of brought up a couple times in the video, and we'll get there. And I guess that's always been something that's bothered me because I think despite all of our issues with affordability for life in general, I still think reading should be seen as affordable. And I don't want people to start getting in their heads that they can't read because they don't have very much money. I mean, as the comments in Daniel Green's video said, we still do have libraries. So, there there we'll talk about more the the whole argu all the arguments he makes and respond to them. But I just want to say that upfront that I still think reading should be seen as very accessible. The way he frames what he considers the problem of high prices for books in his video is that we recently saw the death of the mass market paperback.

[00:05:55]>> In recent months, we have seen the actual reading format of mass market paperbacks literally go the way of the dodo.

[00:06:03]>> He does mention that sales dropped by 84% for the mass market paperback before they got rid of it. And we can speculate on if that was completely natural.

[00:06:14]people just didn't want to buy those little hardto- read books anymore or if there was some sort of coordinated effort of marketing type things to get us to not really want them anymore to point where they got rid of them. But his argument is because we got rid of the mass market paperback, we no longer have a super affordable way to access books that people can truly own. And that is a large problem in the eyes of Daniel Green. The video is actually really interesting because in the beginning of the video, he is focusing on prices as he sort of alludes to through the title, but by the end of the video, the focus is more on how it's really hard for small bookstores to survive when we have something like Amazon that is acting a little bit like a monopoly in the market and why we need to make it harder for Amazon to undercut other sellers. So, it's really a two topics video that we're going to be going through here. The first part I think gets people in the door to talk about affordability. And then what's really important to him and I tend to agree with him on giving Amazon too much power is that we don't lose a sort of reading culture especially and specifically in the United States because of a perceived affordability problem and because we would rather go to Amazon who gives us cheaper prices than the local areas that could really form a cultural space. So that's kind of where this is going. But first, I'm going to talk about where he kind of frames things in a way that is a little bit different than me, but it's worth a discussion. He talks about how we've had a very stagnant minimum wage in the United States and talks about how to get a paperback book. A minimum wage worker would have to work for three hours, >> which means to afford the cheapest physical option for a book, you need to work on average for three full hours.

[00:08:18]Now, I do think that this is an interesting way to put it because I think I agree that the minimum wage is too low and that if we are going to choose to have a minimum wage, it's best that we let it keep up with inflation cuz otherwise eventually it's not going to mean anything. But I will also just kind of point out he focuses on the minimum wage a lot. And there just aren't that many people who are truly earning minimum wage. And I don't mean that to sound like I don't care because I truly do care about people who are earning minimum wage cuz I do think that's concerning. But even most teenagers that I have met that work at something like Taco Bell earn above minimum wage generally. So, I do think it's a little bit of an exaggeration to put book prices throughout his whole video comparing it to the extreme minimum wage in America. Now, to be fair, I don't think Barnes & Noble pays that much above the minimum wage because, well, they probably would struggle to to be completely honest because books are not that profitable.

[00:09:24]And this is where I want to sort of talk about my own thing for a second. I think that everything has gotten very unaffordable to the point that everyone thinks that everything is unaffordable.

[00:09:37]And there have been several things that Daniel doesn't bring up, but I want to bring up that allude to the idea that books might not actually be at all the problem that books are generally pretty resistant to inflation, meaning that books don't get that much more expensive over time. In his video, Daniel Green does talk about how there were some uh issues with getting paper basically during the pandemic and how the prices have never really come down from that.

[00:10:07]Totally believe that. But if you look at a lot of sort of sources online for what things are less of a big deal when it comes to inflation, books usually come out on top. Here's an article from 2022, which is a little bit outdated. Here's another opinion piece. There's lots of opinion pieces on this from 2026, much more well this year, about how books generally aren't actually more expensive today than they were in the past. The issue is everything else is more expensive. So, it's hard to afford books when your rent is so high and when you have so much food that you need to buy and you know, necessities, gas for your car if you have to drive your car to work, things like this. And Daniel Green kind of mentions how the publishing industry does have a hard time keeping prices really low because not only do they give a heavy discount off the price of the book to the people who to book sellers to people who sell the book but with the remaining portion that they keep which he says is about 45% they have to keep they have to pay their authors their editors everyone involved with making the book the actual materials for making the book. So it's not really like they are having really high margins. So in my I'm going into this with the perspective that I don't know if there is a crisis. I don't know if the books themselves are the issue or if it's just everything else making it hard to afford anything. He is concerned with the idea which I actually think is really noble that people will be cut out of culture because they can't afford books anymore. especially talking about books being sort of an accessible type of entertainment and as we lose something like the mass market paperback, we are losing a really easy way to get into the conversation and to read. Now, he does specifically keep out ebooks until about 10 minutes into his video because he's not a huge fan of some elements of the ebook. He says that he likes them and that he reads them.

[00:12:10]But he goes on to kind of bring up the point of we can't really compare the cheap book of the past with the cheap book of now because when you purchase an ebook, you don't truly purchase it. It's a lot more like renting it. They can potentially revoke an ebook if you go through one of the major platforms that most people use, including Amazon. And that they can change it and that owning something is better than renting something. and he really doesn't love the idea of you will own nothing and you'll be happy which a lot of people do complain about and I prefer myself to own things.

[00:12:46]>> First, we have to talk about the not solution that I hear people float all the goddamn time cuz it does seem to make sense. Just say, "Hey, people can't afford trad paperbacks now that mass market paperbacks are going away. Go with the ebooks. You just get them in one or two clicks and everything's solved and fine." No. Now, I will say when we're just talking about affordability and accessibility to entertainment, I think it's a little bit unfair to not consider the ebook a completely viable option. Sure, there are some things that are definitely different between a small mass market paperback, which we can no longer buy, and an ebook. But in the practical day-to-day usage, people generally can afford ebooks. Most ebooks aren't very expensive. There are definitely ones that are too expensive, especially a very popular or trendy books, but you can find a lot of affordable ebooks and in your day-to-day experience, they're going to stay on your e-reader, you're going to continue to have access to them generally. And in my own opinion, like after I read a book for fun, like if we're talking about entertainment, I don't really need it every day after that. But of course, I like having access to it. So, I do think it's fair to criticize the way that ebooks are set up, but I don't think it's fair to say that they shouldn't be put into the conversation for how accessible it is to be a reader or enter sort of the cultural discussion because I think they are a huge part of how a lot of people are able to afford to get a lot of books and have access to them for a long time.

[00:14:22]and I don't think that should be completely taken away just because we don't like how things happen all the time with the companies that distribute them. He then kind of goes on to say something along the lines of an ebook shouldn't be more than a dollar or two.

[00:14:36]Now, I do think there can definitely be a lot of greed with markups for something like an ebook. It's a very lowcost thing to deliver for sure, but I am okay with prices being a little bit above a dollar or two. I do think an ebook becomes excessive when we get into like that $15 range that some of them are starting to be up in. But I mean to be honest, it's not even most of it them. It's some of them. But when it comes down to it, I think the publishing industry in general has such low margins, especially for print and paper books that if they need to make up some of their profit with pricing an ebook at $6, let's say, and they use that $6 to pay the author and also be a profitable business. I want these companies to if for all their faults, I want them to stay in business and to be successful.

[00:15:26]So, I don't think that we should always feel like it's unreasonable if an ebook is priced above $2. In fact, I would ask and encourage a lot of indie authors to put your books higher than 99. I think a lot of people do that and I would rather you get a little bit more for your work.

[00:15:45]And I know it's difficult and it's tough and there's a lot more that goes into this and I'm no expert, but I think that we should be willing to see books for the valuable things that they are and allow them to be priced at a point that is reasonable for it to continue not only as a passion and as a side project and as an art, but also as a business.

[00:16:06]And I think this is where I come to a little bit of a disagreement with a core idea that many people have. Maybe Daniel Green has it. It's not something he explicitly says in his video. He talks about this whole idea of accessibility to entertainment as if it's sort of a human right. And I think with books as a society, we have kind of decided that it's to some extent a right because we do have libraries and we do have systems that make books more accessible to people who don't have the money to buy a book every month if they want to be an avid reader. But at the same time, I think the idea that everything should always cater to the consumer to the point that we don't want these businesses to be profitable enough to really get by and continue is a little bit problematic. And I would rather my books keep up with inflation than for the businesses that sell them to not be able to make a profit doing so. And now, I'm not saying that. I know that we're all uh kind of in this stage of uh late stage capitalism and that there's a lot of greed. I just don't know if I tend to see the same amount of greed with the average book sales as I do with other things. Now, we will get into the Amazon part of the video cuz he talks about that a lot and I'll have thoughts on that. But I'm just saying I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect a brand new book to be $18. And if I want to buy a hard cover, I don't think it's unreasonable for me expect that to be $30 because there's a lot that goes into that. And when it doesn't fit my budget, which to be fair, sometimes these books don't fit my budget. I am a normal person. I think it's okay to either have to wait for something or to use the library. I don't think my right to read the seventh dungeon crawler Carl book is to the point where I need to have a really really cheap copy. Now, I think that that they're allowed to make a profit on the books that actually keep the industry alive. Now, I'm going to get into the part where he kind of talks about how he doesn't like a lot of the really powerful companies sort of changing the market to where it's really hard for local bookstores and basically the culture of reading in our community to thrive. I think that these are good points. He then does this local bookstore interview and kind of highlights the idea that Amazon gets a lot of great deals, which is why they can price their books below uh independent bookstores. He talks about volume pricing because they basically sell so many books. Uh that is a huge deal for how they can make books cheaper than other areas. Uh they also have the wholesale direct to customer thing going on. They also receive new releases earlier than an independent bookstore or even other large bookstores, which I do think is probably a big deal when it comes to like a new release that is really popular. If everyone is really waiting for something and Amazon gets it first, that definitely does give them an edge that I'm not a huge fan of. Then he is also just really concerned about how the future looks like Amazon is going to want to be pushing subscription services more especially in audiobooks and ebooks. I think he focuses on ebooks because he mentions Kindle Unlimited and that we should be concerned about the future where they want us to read but have it be directed by algorithms and directed by not knowing owning anything and constantly having to pay to read. I actually tend to agree with him on the Amazon things. Now, if you need to buy books from Amazon for any personal reason, they do have cheaper prices. I am not upset by anyone who buys things from Amazon. I tend to try to buy from other places when I can and when I can afford it and to use the library. I do think it is concerning that we do let Amazon have so much power in so many of these sectors of the economy and it does seem that they do have a concerning in my opinion it seems like they have a concerning power over book sales and maybe a little bit of an unfair advantage which is definitely what he's arguing for in this video but when it comes to this when I think about the two things he mentions in this video one books are too expensive and they should not be priced high and even an ebook shouldn't be above $2 because it's such an easy deliverable. And then he goes on to say, "But we need to support indie bookstores and stores that don't have this competitive advantage over Amazon."

[00:20:40]It just takes me a little bit of sitting back and and having to consider what he means because in my mind agreeing with the latter half of it that we should be supporting more businesses and keeping a competitive market. I think that means that we need to accept prices that are a little bit higher than what can be achieved by by going to Amazon.

[00:21:06]And that means that we need to accept to some extent that books are not priced way too high for what is considered fair. And that's a hard thing to say.

[00:21:18]It's really hard to get online and tell people that book prices maybe aren't too high because most people are struggling and that's not a message people want to hear. But I still really stand by the idea that it seems to be true to me that everything else is too high and it makes it really hard to afford books because over time books haven't even kept up with inflation throughout all of the years from my understanding. Although there have been a couple years of price rate uh rates going higher recently because of some supply chain things.

[00:21:49]Now, if we are in the situation where we want things to be really easy to access and for people not to be limited on what they read based off of if they can afford to do it or not because I'm in these situations too sometimes. I think that thinking about what we would want as a society is a very useful conversation and he kind of gets into that. He starts by saying if you are having a hard time affording all these new books that are very expensive, you can go to used bookstores. I love used bookstores. I think that is a great suggestion and I also suggest the library. I read so many books for free every month on the library especially because uh ebooks get directly delivered to my coobo which is very nice and saves me a lot of money. Same thing with audiobooks. I get a lot of free audio books from the library and I definitely want to defend our libraries because because we need them. That is part of the accessibility issue already being solved. But he goes on to say that there should be certain laws that keep Amazon from having this upper hand that is somewhat unreasonable and somewhat a sign of latestage capitalism. He says that there are some countries that have laws where basically they're not allowed to have those volume discounts, keeping them more in a competitive range with other bookstores. I don't know if I dislike that. I think that would actually be okay because I think that there is a positive net good to promoting reading in a country and I think that we have not done that enough specifically in the United States. I think that I would probably be on board with some sort of subsidy if we want to do that. I think there's a public good that comes specifically from promoting reading and that is my own opinion. So, I would tend to agree with him on uh looking into policies that could make reading more affordable as life becomes less affordable in general.

[00:23:43]I just disagree that books themselves are the main issue or that there is a crisis of any sort. I think there is a general affordability crisis and that because everything else is so more expensive, it is hard to afford books. I do think that we should be willing to understand how much goes into making especially a really well-written and edited book and be willing to understand that that comes with the cost. This is me on my soap box because he spent so much time on a soap box. I'm going to too. I think we tend to undervalue entertainment as far as what we should have to pay for it. And I think that paying for highquality books that have been produced well is okay. I don't feel as bad about that as I feel about a lot of other things in the economy. I just think that YouTube videos tend to do better when we call everything a crisis.

[00:24:36]That's my take though. If you think I'm kind of missing something because books are a big issue as far as the affordability thing goes, let me know down below. Let me know how you access books. Uh if you're rich and you have all the money in the world, don't let me know how you access books. But if you're one of us normal people, do you go to the library a lot? Do you use little free libraries? Do you use used bookstores? How often do you see yourself going into a store like Barnes & Noble to get a brand new book? Is that something you do when it's something you're really excited about, or is that how you buy most of your books? I'd be curious to know about all of this. So, let me know down in the comments what you think about this topic. Thanks for watching.