Yes, I couldn't agree more.
All greedy authors should be content to live on 2 cents per word, and
that should not be inflation adjusted, since we know that talk is cheap.
No books should be printed on longer-lasting acid-free stock.
Paper should not cost any more, since we know that the price of
titanium dioxide is much less than it used to be, and we know that the
cost of cleaning up paper mills' waste into the rivers was really no cost
at all.
Four and five-color illustrations are disconcerting. One should only
read books. A good copper cut is quite good enough. Photographs will
never catch on.
Binders--well that's a sorry lot. Why on earth should they use Roxite
or better cloth, when they could reach back into time and use
starch-filled cloth. Creeps, all.
Typesetters--another sorry lot. Why, in my day, they loved to ingest
the lead fumes from their Linotype machines. A pox on all these cold-type
machines. From managment's perspective, it was much cheaper to have them
die off young than to pay into their retirement funds.
Sewing signatures with cotton thread was good. Cotton was cheap and the
tenant farmers were so grateful that it was used for books that they
could not afford to buy for their children.
Horse-hoof glue was good enough for the books of the 1940s, since,
after all, the pages fell apart before they fell out, or was it that the
pages fell out before the paper fell apart. The deteriorating books
smelled so good, too.
Yep, today's book is a real rip off. The paperback that is printed in
16pp signatures,lies flat, printed on acid-free stock, stitched with
dacron, bound with an everlasting glue, covered with a better cloth or a
PVC cover---why all this makes one want to find a good vellum scroll and
start reading.
Bob
On Sun, 18 Jan 1998 13:50:04 -0500 mmcewen@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (John
McEwen) writes:
>The book is available from Amazon.com for $31.96 which is touted as a
>20%
>saving over the regular price. For Canadian purchasers it might be a
>small
>saving depending on the cost of postage. It would work out to about
>to
>about $45 Cdn. and if it is shipped via Purolator - which they used
>for a
>shipment to me - it would cost an additional $7 US or about 9.90 Cdn.
>for a
>total cost of about $54 Cdn. My last book came without GST being
>tacked on
>and, by Purolator, I didn't have to pay the Canada Post $5 "handling"
>gouge.
>
>For someone living in a province with sales tax it would definitely be
>cheaper to order from Amazon.com however it is still a hell of a lot
>of
>money for a book.
>
>Does anyone else feel as I do, that books have to be the single
>biggest
>ripoff, in terms of inflation, of anything currently on the market?
>Look
>back over the past few decades. Pocket books and other soft cover
>books
>have increased in price from the '50s when they cost 10 or 15 cents to
>today when a single novel - admittedly a much thicker volume - costs
>up to
>$10.00. Inflation in the hundreds of percentage points is not found
>anywhere else. Look at electronics, home appliances, booze, food,
>automobiles, housing. Nothing compares. In 1956 one could buy a new
>MGA
>for about the price of a new Chev. Today a new Miata - closest
>available
>comparison in N.America costs about 10 times as much in today's
>dollars.
>
>Booze is a real bargain, as are home appliances and electronics.
>Housing
>is still a bargain with increases of only about 15 times for
>comparable
>levels of housing - given the standard ot the two times. The cost of
>fuel
>is a real bargain with increases of only 5 or 6 times as much as the
>'50s.
>
>So why are books such a scam? Why does a book which cost $9.95 in
>1978
>sell for 39.95 in 1998? The new Chev in 1978 cost about $8,000 versus
>a
>better-equipped, more sophisticated new car - with many more safety
>features - at about $22,000. The book is the same book from the same
>printing. The vast increase in book prices is not relative to
>automobile
>price increases and not justifiable when real wages have stayed fairly
>neutral or dropped during the same period of time.
>
>We have also seen a tremendous increase in warehouse book stores, mail
>order book outlets, on-line sales, and what would appear to be a surge
>in
>book demand. Theoretically with sales up and "bargain" outlets
>proliferating we should be seeing dramatic price decreases. This
>appears
>to be the case with "bargain books" which are cranked out to adorn
>coffee
>tables and are produced in low-wage areas, but doesn't explain the
>price of
>pulp publications and serious hardcover offerings.
>
>The whole thesis is that books in the '50s represented a far smaller
>portion of a daily wage than today. As a student, I earned about 1.25
>per
>hour when a pocket book cost 25 cents and a textbook was under $5.
>Taxes
>were insignificant and I kept nealy all of what I earned. Today's
>student
>is lucky to earn $7.00 per hour (in Alberta). The pocket book costs
>at
>least an hour's wages and textbooks cost a day's wages and much more.
>Sales taxes and income taxes eat up a large portion of that small
>wage.
>Who's getting rich?
>
>John
>
>
>>Trevor Boicey wrote:
>>
>><My local bookshop got a copy of "MG: The untold story" by
>>David Knowles in.
>>
>> Has anyone read this book? Is it worth it? The text looked
>>excellent but they only had it in hardcover at $55.95. The other
>>thing that I was a little afraid of is that a lot of the book
>>was about later cars that only the UK ever saw anyways.
>>
>> Opinions?
>>
>>--
>>Trevor Boicey
>>Ottawa, Canada>
>>
>>Trevor,
>>
>>This is a great book. It is the most thorough history of the marque I
>have
>>seen yet. It goes deep into the development of the cars, alternatives
>>examined, the whys and wherefores of what finally emerged. There is
>more
>>detail than I have ever seen before that puts these events into
>context with
>>what else was happening elsewhere within Morris/BMC/Leyland/Rover.
>All this
>>is told with a nice balance between the details of cars themselves,
>the
>>personalities of those developing them and the car market in general.
>Yes
>>there are lot of cars that didn't go to North America - there are a
>lot of
>>prototypes and development cars and alternatives to the production
>cars that
>>never saw the light of day anywhere until now. There's a great deal
>of detail
>>on the development of the post Abingdon cars up to the MGF. This is a
>great
>>book that I would recommend very highly. The $59.95 price sounds a
>bit steep
>>though. I got my copy through BritBooks for $39.95US and I have seen
>it in
>>local stores at the same price.
>>
>>Kim Tonry
>>Editor - MGB Driver - the Journal of the North American MGB Register
>>Downers Grove, Illinois, USA
>
>
>
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