Today’s low incomes and the high cost of books makes reading new releases difficult.
Ah, the feeling of opening up a brand-new book. A story you haven’t read yet. A world of adventure printed and bound. There’s no feeling like it. If ever there was an upside to the first Covid-19 lockdown; it was that I got back in touch with reading.
But there’s a barrier. A glass ceiling of sorts. Perhaps a class ceiling. Because of minimum wage, moderate hours and high bills, I can’t afford to simply walk into WHSmith or Waterstones and pick up the latest novel or piece of non-fiction and certainly not worry-free if I did. Books are expensive and as a result, I can rarely get them brand-new.
None of this stops me reading, however. Right now, I trawl through eBay, second-hand book shops and charity shops to find the books I want at affordable prices. It works. But for the low prices, I must put up with the risk of stains or damage as even when promised a good condition, I can never be certain. Rarely do I get books not up to standard, but it does sometimes happen. You can check it in shops well enough, but you must always take the internet’s word for it when ordering online.
One of the biggest issues I have, however, is review writing. As a writer, I love to review books but book reviews can only be done in a certain space of time, can’t they? I was able to review Rory Clement’s latest Tom Wilde novel The English Fuhrer, but even then, it had already been out for over a year. Who will want to read my review if the book has been out already for a while and already reviewed a hundred times before?
The difficulty of keeping up to date for reviews is tenfold. How can people take you seriously when you don’t review straight off the mark? Why should your review be relevant when what you have written is not hot off the press?
But there’s more to it than writing reviews. Keeping up to date with a story becomes difficult. It’s ok if you’re reading a singular story; but what about a series? Clements’ Tom Wilde series or his John Shakespeare series? Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series? Despite the stories being amazing, keeping up with them when also waiting for the books to become second-hand and cheap can become overwhelming. How long until the next in the series? How far along will I be? And when oh when will I finish the series so I can discover something new?
And then there’s the spoilers. Spoilers and social media. From books to films, once something is released, there will always be someone talking about it. Whether an overexcited fan or someone out to ruin things deliberately, someone will always post spoilers to social media and people will always see them. As time goes on, such postings become less harmful but for people who have to wait a while to begin a story; it still ruins things for them.
It’s always great when new books are released and authors deserve the success they get from them. But big, corporate publishers that charge over the odds prices are forcing people on low incomes to go without on release day. This leaves them at the mercy of backlogs and the potential for spoilers. It spoils potential reviews by giving the writers the material they need too late. All this is, of course, if people can afford to buy them at all—even second-hand.
Money. It makes the world go round but erects a barrier between the less well-off and reading. Time. The consequence of waiting for the prices to come down which jeopardises any potential reviewer’s articles as people take less of an interest in the stories and people’s opinions of them over time. Social media. As time goes on, it serves to spoil the story, over and over again. All because people couldn’t afford the book. But what could be done? If not keen to reduce the price on the whole, perhaps publishers, authors and booksellers could give discounted rates or incentives to people struggling with the cost of living crisis? Maybe release them in paperback earlier? Why not donate to second-hand bookshops and charity shops; helping independent shops and charity as well as struggling readers? And why not send them to the local library faster? All this could help and stop people from being priced out of reading.
Words by James Jobson