Comment by presbyterian
1 month ago
> eBooks don't need printing, warehousing, distribution and retail shelving
But they do need editing, layout, design, marketing, etc, which are a significant part of the cost of a book. A book is never a solo endeavor by an author.
Presumably, though, those are also things that you'd need for a physical print book, and you could share some of that effort / cost between the two? Maybe this is a naive assumption, but I would assume that the total cost per unit of ebook is still a decent amount less than a print book, even when factoring for the publishing costs, purely due to the fact that you are dealing with a digital version compared with a print version that needs real materials and labor.
You put it well and presbyterian is right in that point, but eBooks don't have the financial risk of retail merchandise planning and merchandising, and that cost saving isn't differentiated.