I came across a survey that says Gen-n would pay considerably more for Broadway theater more when they understand how much work goes into it. Gen-n = anybody younger than me, which at this point is a whole lot of people. And I’ll ignore the fact that the survey was created by folks who have a very large financial interest in the results.
Okay, but… really?
So… let me tell you how much work goes into writing. There’s the actual writing, of course, coupled with the years of experience, life experience as well as writing experience. There’s cover design and rounds of editing, both by me and by others, and interior design (figuring out margins, fonts, and a whole bunch of arcane stuff that makes words look better on the page), and printing and shipping the books, and marketing, and…. Bored, yet?
But wait, aren’t you willing to pay more for a book now that you know how much hard work goes into it?
I didn’t think so. Unless maybe you’re Gen-n, and even there I doubt it.
I think – I did a very small survey of my own here – that people pay for books because they expect to be entertained, moved, convinced, trepidatious, excited, and more, any or all. These days, very few people have those home libraries full of leather-bound books and the little rolling steel ladder and maybe a secret room if you pull the spine of Paul Clifford by Bulwer-Lytton. (That’s the one that starts, “It was a dark and stormy night.”) Coffee-table tomes aside, people buy books to read rather than to display, though maybe a very visible price tag would help. “Oh, look, he paid $89.95 for that book. It must be really excellent.”
Unless we’re heading to the Gilded Age redux. Which I’m not ruling out, by the way.
Still, I believe – and this wouldn’t be the first time I’m self-deluded – the value of books comes from the joy people get from reading them, rather than the joy (?) they get for paying a lot because producing a book is such hard, hard work.
Oops, break’s over. Gotta get back to the writing mill. Please know that I’m working really, really hard for you.