Too Many Books?

I was browsing the radio stations on the tv Sunday morning- one of the joys of digital you can listen to the radio without needing a radio-and I came across a half hour programme on Radio 4, Too Many Books.
It looked at the difficulties that people face when they decide to reduce the number of books they have as a result of downsizing, death of a partner, or not enough room for newer books.

Don't know if you're like me, but I am very very reluctant to dispose of any of the books on my shelves-I have bookshelves full of books of all sizes and assorted subjects. (Admittedly some of the books do belong to my other half.)

Recently I've been thinking about sorting through them- I'm meant to be on a reorganisation spell at home- and have decided that I must get rid of some of the books I have, dust all the books and the shelves and rearrange those I'm keeping.

I suspect it will take a long time and in the end I won't have got rid of that many.

There are still books on the shelf that I bought in my late teens and early twenties and am very attached to, M M Kaye's 'The Far Pavillions', 'Shadow of the Moon' and 'Trade Wind', plus a number of her shorter 'Murder In...' stories.  Also the Poldark books by Winston Graham that I worked my way through after the series appeared on tv all those years ago.

(Sadly Kaye died in 2004 and Graham in 2003, both authors were of the same generation, born a couple of months apart in 1908. (Their books left me wanting more every time.)

They're only paperbacks but I'm certain they will be staying with me to the end...

Are Hardback Books On the Way Out?

Reading an article by Alison Flood in the Books section of the Guardian online (Friday evening) I saw this headline 'Hardback sales plummeting in age of the ebook'.

"Sales of adult hardback fiction have fallen by over 10% this year alone, with e-books now accounting for 13.6% of US market."

The US has had e-book sales a little longer than we have in the UK, so this may explain some of the figures, but it could also be an indicator of the future in the UK too.

Already there have been rises in the recommended retail price of hardback fiction - 0.9%, so year on year 15p, according to this article on the Bookseller website (5.8.11).

The 'celebrity autobiographies' that appear in the run-up to Christmas are always hardback and when you see the prices they're starting at, it's not surprising the booksellers quickly put their eye-catching discount stickers on the covers and heavily promote their availability.

I wouldn't pay £20-£25 for them and I'm sure a lot of readers agree...

I do have a lot of hardback non-fiction but even I baulk at the prices being asked, so favoured books tend to be bought for me as a birthday or Christmas present by my family.

Even when I've seen the latest novel by one of my favourite romance authors available in hardback, I will wait for the paperback version to be released.

Though I know that in some genres die-hard fans will buy every new novel (by their favourite author) in hardback when it's released, and if they can get it personally signed, even better...

I've always thought that going straight to paperback was possibly better than having a hardback that sold poorly and never got the chance to go to paperback-because the HB sales weren't positive enough.
But perhaps it would be harder to get a paperback deal in the first place in that scenario...

When it was a choice between a book in HB or PB (assuming both formats were available) then it was only dependant on the personal preferences of the reader.

Now that same reader has the added choice of an e-book and perhaps even an audio book too. Personal choice still comes into play, but sales are now more diluted.

We all know publishers need to make money; without it there wouldn't be any writers taken on.
But with costs rising will it get to the point where only best selling authors get their latest novel published in hardback, or will hardbacks become the domain of non-fiction only?

So what's your view on hardbacks? Love them or hate them? Non-fiction only in hardback format?