It's entirely dependant upon volume. According to [0], the average US non-fiction book will sell under 3,000 copies in its lifetime. For the proceeds from that to pay the author, editor, and marketing... Well, that's not a lot of copies to amortize those salaries across.
The numbers are obviously very different for a New York times best seller, where physical goods costs will represent a larger fraction of the cost. But most books aren't NYT bestsellers, (even? Particularly?) When they're by Knuth on advanced topics. :)
you could call paying all of the people involved in the process of creating a book artificial, but if we don't, we don't get more books.
The numbers are obviously very different for a New York times best seller, where physical goods costs will represent a larger fraction of the cost. But most books aren't NYT bestsellers, (even? Particularly?) When they're by Knuth on advanced topics. :)
you could call paying all of the people involved in the process of creating a book artificial, but if we don't, we don't get more books.
[0] https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1394159