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Originally Posted by GhostHawk
3 Ebooks cost virtually nothing to produce and ship, they are a digital copy.
The only legitimate cost of an ebook should be the authors royalty.
Period.
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Flatly wrong.
There are an assortment of costs that are incurred by any book, whether it is issued in paper or not.
There will be the cost of acquisition, as the publisher offers a contract and provides an advance against royalties for the rights to offer the books in specified formats and locations.
There will be development costs, as the manuscript is line edited by an editor, then copy edited and proof read when an acceptable manuscript draft is arrived at. An art director will design a cover, and likely commission an illustrator or photographer for it. There may be interior graphics as well, and another book designer will do the interior design. There will be lawyers involved in the contract, and rights and permissions people. The book will need to be marked up and typeset when a final manuscript is approved, and the files generated that can be handed to printers. And there will be an allocated share of the overhead of the publisher - rental on office space, electricity and phone bills, general expenses not allocatable specifically to a particular book...
All of these costs are there even if the book is not actually printed, bound, warehoused, and distributed, and is instead issued as an ebook. The costs, together with the publisher's best guess on the number of copies the book will sell, will determine the suggested retail price.
Assuming the author's royalty is the only legitimate cost of an ebook demonstrates ignorance of the publication process.
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Dennis