No kidding! I've never paid more than $10 for a paperback, or more than $17.99 for a hardcover. . . .
!!!!
Dunno how you do it. Trade paperbacks go for $12.95 and up (see list prices in the
Publisher's Weekly bestseller list for an overview), and hardbacks typically start at $23.95 (before discounts in both cases), and these days can be upwards of $30 list, esp. for nonfiction. Among my recent purchases,
Stop Walking on Eggshells, at $16.95 (trade paperback) ,
Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene, $15.95 (trade paperback), and
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture ($25.00, trade paperback). Also, Robert B. Parker's
Rough Weather ($26.95, hardback) and Bart Ehrman's
Misquoting Jesus ($24.95, hardback). B&N and Amazon and Costco discounts help, of course, so I'm rarely paying list prices. But even Costco was charging $15 or more for
Rough Weather. I've noticed prices sneaking up on hardback novels, esp. by big name authors.
PA's prices are of course preposterous, even by those standards, and quality abysmal. That is how they can push those special deals (2 for 1, etc.), by jacking up list prices to absurd levels. But it is not fair to compare to mass-market paperback and remaindered hardback prices.
--Ken