Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
Actually most of the so called physical cost in printing are really set up and proofing costs. The run is pretty automated and paper it cheap. It costs less than a buck to print a book including binding it.
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Paperback books; hardcovers are more, I believe. (But not much more, even with fancy dust jackets. $2-3? As much as $5, sometimes? Up to $10 for big textbooks with color pics, maybe? Probably not that much.)
However, the costs of pbooks don't end at printing. Packing, shipping, storage, and inventory tracking are all part of the physical costs that don't exist for ebooks. And each of those adds substantial layers (costs) between publisher and purchaser, which could be bypassed for ebooks. Even ebooks sold by a third-party store are skipping several steps that brick-and-mortar stores have to deal with; a bad winter flood will never wipe out half their stock.