[Barcey]

Originally Posted by elcreative

In retail of any form, I personally wouldn't even get out of bed for 5-10% margin as a general rate even with economies of scale... if your margins aren't enough then you still won't be able to afford proper staffing, equipment, premises etc. So then you go back to small isn't beautiful approach. Businesses, of course, can never win... evil people wanting to make a living, nasty professionals wanting to design a website & sales service that can deal with all of their customers (most of the time)... everything should be run for the joy of it by happy amateurs living off the land the rest of their ample time....

Amazon is a volume based business that should run on a smaller percentage then a typical retailer. If they sell 1 million James Patterson ebooks at $10 each do you really think they earned $3 million? With the volume of business they run yes I still believe that 5-10% average provides them with enough profit and a return to their investors.

btw, I don't challenge the 30% on the self published authors because there is a lot more overhead to manage that business.