Great news for book buyers in 2023

Judging from comments by various booksellers in both the UK and US, sales of book have taken a really heavy hit, presumably due to the much higher cost of energy and general inflation. Books are generally not an essential buy for most folk if they are struggling to pay their heating, food and all the other day-to-day expenses. As a bookseller I think they should be given top priority in the household budget for educational, mental health and other essential reasons but that may be a self interested view!

The good news for members of this Forum therefore is that there should be some very good sales of fine books this year as publishers and bookshops chase after too few buyers.

Trouble is for those of us who love books, you have still to be able to afford even the reduced prices...

>1 English-bookseller:

I've just spent nearly a couple of hundred on the Princeton UP summer sale at 50% off all books. It was just too tempting!

>2 RogerBlake:

The last couple of paperbacks I bought from PUP ended up being print-on-demand, and the last couple of hardbacks ended up having "perfect" bindings. I don't suppose there's any way to find out details like this from PUP before buying, is there?

>3 cpg:

The PUP books I have had in the past have always been of reasonable quality even if perfect bound. I am hoping they are still similar. Re. print-on-demand books in general, some are actually pretty good and others (most!) are just awful.

With publishers, there are still some producing decent sewn bound hardbacks. Short Run Press in Exeter is used by several smaller societies that I have bought books from and mostly make a pretty good job of things (also proper sewn bound hardbacks).

It'll be interesting to see how the FS is affected by the cost of living crisis. I recall an interview with their CEO from 12-18 months ago speculating that their customers have deeper pockets than most and tend to endure economic downturns relatively unscathed (I'm not convinced either of those things are true). I have a hunch that their newly-preferred customers (the Instagram/TikTok crowd) control smaller wallets and are a lot flakier and more fad-prone than the FS's longer-term customers. It feels like the zeitgeist has drifted away from books since the lockdown years of 2020/21 and many of these folk are moving on to other things.

UK book sales in 2022 were the second highest since 2012 so pretty healthy. It will be interesting to see how this year pans out.