The reason why novels were still so expensive was that the competition in the novel market was very fierce, and many editors were trying to make a profit in this market. In addition, due to the rise of e-books, many novel booksellers began to turn to the e-book market, which also led to the rise in the price of e-books. The cost of the novel was also an important factor. The author of the novel needed to invest a lot of time and energy to create the novel and had to pay the author a fee. In addition, the novel publishing house also had to invest a lot of money in editing, publishing, and printing the novel. These costs had to be allocated to the price of each novel. In summary, the high price of novels was the result of a combination of factors such as fierce market competition, the rise of e-books, and cost investment.