Hi Popdog
I'm afraid that seems to be about the average price of most guitar books, if not considerably more. But I look at it this way, you usually get a CD or DVD with it which I reckon are essential if you are teaching yourself from a book as it adds so much a book can't show you, such as what your learning should really sound like or hand positioning or whatever. I get all my books online just because they have a far greater range than most shops. I think instructional DVD/Videos are good too. I only had a few lessons when I was really young kid and took the guitar up again later and prefer to teach myself from books, just because I can learn exactly what I want and at the pace I want to. I have more time now as I don't work as much as I used to so I can put more time into it. Having said all that, I'll have to assume your just starting out as you said you just got your guitar. I found a good beginners book to be Susan Mazer's: 'Absolute Beginner' on Alfred Publications. A quick search on the net should find it
www.alfred.com. It comes with about an hour long DVD. Don't worry I don't work for this crowd or anything
I just know how hard it is when you are getting started to find the right stuff. The thing I like about it is that she takes you through the basics that apply to all music styles and then suggests you find some material on the type of music that you want to play, whether it be metal, blues, country or whatever. I'm into Blues so the next book got was a blues one from their series and that was good too. But then I just started getting books from a whole lot of other places online. So, if you aren't taking lessons from a teacher, like I'm not, the $30 is pretty well spent really because the content of the book should last you a fair while and when you think about it one lesson from a guitar teacher will probably cost you $50. I'm not knocking getting lessons. If you can afford it and you can find a good teacher do so by all means. Anyway I hope that ramble was of some use to you.
Good luck with your practice, all the best, Ken.