New print books are expensive! Some cheaper alternatives

My wife and I were chatting about why she had sold more Amazon Kindle versions than paperback versions of her new Civil War historical fantasy.  Granted, the Kindle version is only 20% the cost of the paperback version, but I had said that $14.99 was a bit much to pay for a paperback.

“Since when?!” she piped up.  I had thought new paperbacks were $6.99 or $7.99.  I knew they were at one point, but that turned out to be ten years ago.  New paperbacks are usually well over $10 now.  (Shows you how often I pay attention to the prices of paperback fiction.)

That's pricey, but that's probably the highest price I'd pay: the list price on the back of the book.  Here's a list of places to get books, ranging from highest to lowest price (approximately):

• Retail, in a chain bookstore. This is the Borders price for a new book that isn't a recent release or otherwise on special.  It's the price on the back of the book.
• A discount seller like Amazon.com. Usually you can get a better price here for a new release: 20% or 30% off of the list price.  If you buy the right amount of stuff, or have Amazon Prime, you can get free shipping as well.
• On an e-reader like the Kindle. Sometimes you can get a break on the price of a new book if you have an e-reader.  Unfortunately most of the very popular books aren't much less expensive in electronic form than in print form.
• A used book store. You're likely not going to get the newest books, but you can get fairly recent books for Amazon prices.  There may be a few dog ears on the pages, but the words are still there.
• Used on Amazon. Amazon.com also has links to sellers of used books.  The price might be fairly good but there's not much way around the shipping: $3.99 for a book.  That takes a bit of the fun out of it.  For more expensive books this could be only a small difference, though.
• Library book sales.  My wife enjoys going to these.  Our local library culls its collection of duplicates and takes donations of books as well.  The prices are really good:  $2.00 for five paperbacks, slightly more for hardbacks.  During the last days of the sale they'll sell you an entire bag of books for $1.
• Borrow from the library or from a friend. This is free (as long as you return it on time!)  You might be waiting a while for a popular book, though.  There's where the price is: your time, both waiting for the book and getting it in the time frame allowed by the library's wait list.

What the price boils down to is how fast you want to have the book. If you want it now, you pay more than if you want it later.  If you want it the second you see it in Borders, you'll pay the most.  If you borrow it at the library months or years later, you'll pay the least.

The choice is yours!