[JoeAltmaier]

Coincidentally, it costs between $2000 and $4000 to print and market a book. So, what, say $1 per book pays for that. The rest pays the author.

But wait! Authors only get a buck or two royalty per book. So why do they cost so much?

Use your imagination.

[bregma]

> it costs between $2000 and $4000 to print and market a book

It costs between $2000 and $4000 to print a book. It costs about the same to warehouse and distribute a typical hardcover.

It costs maybe $100,000 to market a book. Often much more.

Printing, distribution, and royalties are a small part of costs in the publishing industry. Marketing and amortized overhead are a large part of the costs.

[greedo]

Most books, especially non-fiction have incredibly small marketing budgets. Often it's up to the author to self-promote the book.

[vorpalhex]

If you spend $100,000 to market a book that only sells 3k copies.. maybe you're bad at marketing.

[SolaceQuantum]

Marketing, type setting, cover design, editing, distribution channels, licenses for fonts, lawyers for contracts between everyone, accountants for managing the money flow of all the above, analysts to track how well each genre is selling and why, etc? And if the cover is particularly glossy, has metallic shiny lettering, velvet, etc. That also jacks price because that stuff all has to be custom made.

[TheCoelacanth]

The author's cut, the publisher's cut and the cost of printing the book are each about 10% of the gross[1]. The rest goes to the retailer.

[1] https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-d...

[falcolas]

Many authors also get paid ahead of time to write their book as well. So, a portion of that also goes towards managing the loan given to the author, and distributing the risk of any given book not living up to its sales expectations.