The thing is that a lot of the costs are fixed, up-front costs. Editorial, typesetting, proofreading, copyediting, other production costs (fees, permissions, etc. for art), sales and marketing costs (catalogs, advance copies, sales calls) are all incurred before copy 1 is printed. Marginal costs for a book that sells well is relatively small, though some expenses (retail coop payments, royalties) get a bigger budget when a book is a bestseller. A big-selling book is way more profitable than a midlist book, which might not even break even. Traditionally, backlist (where those fixed costs were amortized long ago) was also profitable for publishers, even at lower sales volumes, but it is not quite as good business these days. It's really true that bestsellers are like the hollywood summer 'tentpole' movies--they pay for everything else.

Very true. Another great insight is: "The end results proved that customers could tell the difference."

Customers can always tell the difference between quality and non-quality, and since manufacturing is actually a small part of the retail price, it's crazy to try to save money on quality.

Well, that and that their initial publishing offer (which is good? I have no experience) is more insulting the more you run through the numbers.

On the other hand I've read accounts of people who've published through O'Reilly and were very happy with having a team of people to crunch through the layout, typesetting, etc.

It's insulting for Achatz and Kokanas, but the dirty secret of these advance deals is that while they're certainly tilted towards publishers, book publishing is a losers-pay-for-the-winners business.

That doesn't make book writing for publishers a good deal for anyone, by the way. Executing on a book contract is one of the lower effort/reward things you can do.

You mean higher effort/reward? Otherwise, I'm confused.

Higher reward/effort?

But that's the cost of just getting the books to your warehouse. There's the additional labor cost of unpacking them and individually shipping them, which is probably more than $3.83/book.

actually that part is easy. You can use a fulfillment company and the costs are known and passed to the consumer. We are using www.Blackbox.cool to do it this time around. Last time we used Warepak

And shelf space costs a lot more than server space and bandwidth.

> While a weighty tome may literally feel like it's worth a hefty premium

If you asked me what about a big cookbook with glossy pictures would make it cost more than a regular book, I'd go with the glossy pictures, not the mass.

The mass implies both many pages and/or high quality heavier paper, both of which are more expensive.

This is true, yet the cost is not calculated this way. It is not only the print cost. Large publishers have overhead cost that can exceed the publication cost itself such as the different departments, legal issues, marketing, renting for booths...etc. While the self-publish look promising it face lots of barriers. Most self-publishers can hardly sell their books as they focus on writing and neglect other factors such as marketing which make take equal effort and more cost comparing with the writing itself.

You're missing a lot of the costs associated with publishing. You're completely omitting the costs of distrobution (which can be a fairly huge sum if you plan on having that book in stores) and marketing (which is going to be huge if you plan on having in stores, since you will want to sell a large volume of them).

both of those costs are mitigated today. Marketing through social media channels is very cost effective. Amazon controls about 2/3rds of all book sales so go on there. And fulfillment and inventory is easily handled at a fixed cost per book by a third party... we're using www.blackbox.cool

>cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US.

This is because they have access to a traditional printer and are able to order the volume needed for that price. A print on demand book from amazon that is 200 pages, full color will cost ~$15/book. But, that price is fixed whether you buy 1 or 5000 copies. Add in amazon's cut and you're looking to make 30% for each sale on amazon.com. If they handle distribution to bookstores you're looking at a 10% cut.

This is the option available to most self publishers and the margins are not that much better than going with a traditional publisher. Especially, because the author needs to front all of the costs for editing, design, etc.

Are most books ever bought? I would assume that most books remain in inventory. Sitting on shelves forever.

Books in stores get shipped back to the publisher where they are pulped. That cost is also reflected in the price.