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The Annoyed Man wrote:With smaller press runs, there are fewer copies over which to amortize the fixed costs of running a press.

That sounds similar to the economics for the original run of Unintended Consequences or Monster Hunter International, or any of the books by Matthew Bracken including the recently published Castigo Cay. One significant difference is the gun-fiction authors have to write books people want to read, because I don't know any professors forcing students to buy those books. So, I think the captive market better explains the price gouging. It's a much better explanation than smaller press runs, which many authors face for their first book.

03Lightningrocks wrote:Back to the topic of digital books. I have found a few Kindle books that where around 20% of the hard copy costs but these were high volume books. Text Books probably get a premium due to the low volume.

They definitely get a premium. Looking on Amazon, one popular textbook has a list price around $200 and the Kindle version is $130, but you can get a new copy for less than $100 through Amazon marketplace. Used runs around $75 through Amazon marketplace resellers.

International editions are another example how textbook publishers gouge American students. They can be had for a small fraction of the US edition. Even less than the US online discounters. The only catch is you may have to wait for it to be mailed from India.

The Annoyed Man wrote:Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.

Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.