Book Trends: Higher Prices, Emerging Genres.

This article reports on the prices and genres of books in the U.S., as of June 1991. When Penguin USA and St. Martin's Press increased their price point, book prices have been moving upward. Random House raised the price point to a dollar on its new hardcovers and to 99¢ on all paperbacks. Warner Books, Avon, Berkley Books, Pocket Books and HarperCollins are among the publishers making similar pricing adjustments. According to Random executive Bruce Harris, consumers used to think they were paying less than they were paying. But consumers are no longer fooled so easily. With the sales tax and the average hardcover price up to $20, the old price point is not an efficient tool for getting people to buy. In terms of book genres, juvenile books account for the 51.5 percent of hardcover sales and 43.0 percent of trade paperback sales. In hardcover, religious/historical fiction beats espionage, with 18 percent versus seven percent of sales. Despite the growth in religious publishing and the surge in sales of religious books during the Persian Gulf crisis, such books accounted for only about three percent of sales in all formats at independent bookstores. Perhaps less surprising is evidence that people are eager for practical and how-to information, with cooking, crafts and special interests accounting for more sales in hardcover and trade paperback than any other categories but juvenile and fiction.