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Worldwalker · 12-09-2010, 05:05 PM

So if a publisher's costs for a book require it to be sold at $25 ... how do they account for mass market paperbacks? Or the fact that from publisher to bookstore there is usually a distributor, taking their cut, in the middle, a cost which doesn't exist when the publisher sells direct to a retailer like Amazon?

And it's not just "printing, binding, and paper"; it's shipping, warehousing, taxes (in the US, unsold books are taxed as inventory), etc. And, most important of all, it's returns, which can account for as many or more books as actual sales -- books which have to be printed, stored, shipped, taxed, and then shipped back and stored again, before they finally go to the paper recycler for pennies on the dollar. Returns, of course, don't exist with ebooks.

In short: they're lying.

12-09-2010, 05:05 PM	#10
Worldwalker Curmudgeon Posts: 3,085 Karma: 722357 Join Date: Feb 2010 Device: PRS-505	So if a publisher's costs for a book require it to be sold at $25 ... how do they account for mass market paperbacks? Or the fact that from publisher to bookstore there is usually a distributor, taking their cut, in the middle, a cost which doesn't exist when the publisher sells direct to a retailer like Amazon? And it's not just "printing, binding, and paper"; it's shipping, warehousing, taxes (in the US, unsold books are taxed as inventory), etc. And, most important of all, it's returns, which can account for as many or more books as actual sales -- books which have to be printed, stored, shipped, taxed, and then shipped back and stored again, before they finally go to the paper recycler for pennies on the dollar. Returns, of course, don't exist with ebooks. In short: they're lying.