The Cheapskate vs. the $20 Paperback

(image via wikimedia)

I went to the bookstore a couple days ago to buy a cheap paperback.

This should have been easy.  I had a little over $10 left on a book store gift card, and I didn’t want to use my own money.  I had already purchased the book I really wanted with this same gift card a few weeks ago, so this was like a bonus book.  You can use your own money to pay for part of a bonus book, but you try not to.

Unfortunately, all the books in paperback that I really wanted to read were $15.99 or $16.99 0r $17.99.  One was even $22.99.  To me, spending $20 on a paperback is ridiculous, even with a gift card.  True, I can get a 20% or 25% discount at some bookstores because I’m a member, but I’d rather get a discount on a $9.99 paperback than a $17.99 paperback.

“You can afford the $20,” my daughter said.

“We can afford $20 because I don’t spend $20 for paperbacks,” I said.

If I wanted to spend $20 for a paperback, I might as well fork over the extra $10 or less to buy the hardcover.  Hardcovers last longer and can take more abuse.  A couple decades ago when one of my dogs tore through part of my book collection, only hardcovers (and a Bible) survived the onslaught.  To be fair, my dog tore up one hardcover, The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, but I always regretted buying my own copy of that book anyway.

When I was a kid (here we go), comic books were 20 cents and paperbacks were 99 cents.  I have proof.  I’ve kept a bunch of them (my dog didn’t destroy everything).  Yes, they were cheap and disposable, but that’s what paperbacks (and comics) are supposed to be.  Paperbacks aren’t meant to last for generations.  They’re meant to be read a few times and then thrown out or recycled.  Yes, I know a lot of people (like me) keep paperbacks, but they’re not designed for that.  People like me are supposed to be the exception.  We buy the cheap stuff and then keep the cheap stuff.

My quest didn’t get any easier when I passed the James Patterson wing of the book store.  Technically, James Patterson books are in the fiction section, but now he has three sets of shelves filled up with his books.  Just a couple months ago, he had only two shelves.  In case you don’t know, I think most James Patterson books are unreadable.  Whenever I feel depressed (it doesn’t happen much), I read a few pages of a random James Patterson book and think, “At least I didn’t write this.”

Anyway, the three James Patterson shelves were filled with cheap paperbacks.  Aaaargh!  The writer I despise the most puts out a product in the format that I want.  Oh, the cruel irony!  I mean, I know people will pay top dollar for a James Patterson novel.  Most of his books don’t go directly to paperback.  His novels are hardcover bestsellers when they’re released, so somebody is paying way too much money.  If he priced his paperbacks at $17.99, schmucks would still buy them.  But he doesn’t do that with a lot of his books.

I really wished I liked James Patterson novels.

That’s never going to happen, so I’m stuck reading books that are overpriced.

Literary authors might complain that they’re not making a lot of money, certainly not as much as a bestselling author like James Patterson.  There were several literary novels I almost bought, but the paperback prices were too high.  Maybe if publishing companies put out more $9.99 copies of literary stuff, more people (like me) would buy it.  Then again, maybe cheapskates like me don’t read literary stuff no matter how cheap it is, so the publishing companies overprice literary fiction for the chumps who will pay for it no matter what.  This is what I get for not being a publishing insider; there are a lot of things I don’t know.

When I really want cheap paperbacks, I go to used book stores.  If anything, there are too many cheap paperbacks at the used book store.  My brain can’t absorb all the possibilities.  In my younger days, I would walk out of the used book store with too many books because even if I didn’t read all of them, I hadn’t paid enough to be angry about it.  If I buy a new paperback now, it’s a commitment, even when it’s $9.99.

Nobody gives gift cards to the used book store, though.  I’m pretty sure they exist.  I wonder if gift givers feel cheap giving a used book store gift card.  It’s not like the gift card itself is used.  If it’s a new gift card for a used book store, that’s okay.  It’s the used gift cards that people usually don’t appreciate.

Just so you know, the story has a happy ending.  My daughter found a hardcover, and I paid for some of it with the gift card.  That’s allowed.

Thank you, gift giver, for the gift card!