It's entirely possible for a bookshop to sell a book self-published through CreateSpace : the author can purchase larger prints from CreateSpace (at a lower pri

It's entirely possible for a bookshop to sell a book self-published through CreateSpace : the author can purchase larger prints from CreateSpace (at a lower price than the Amazon list price) and have them sent to the bookshop. But what happens to unsold inventory ? The traditional publisher takes almost all the financial risks : they pay for editing, type-setting, marketing and for the initial printing run of the book, without any guarantee that sales will cover the investment. Bookshops do buy the books, but they are allowed to return unsold inventory after a while, and the publisher takes the loss. With a self-published author, who shoulders the risk of printing a copy and delivering it to bookshop shelves ? For CreateSpace in France, that's 15€-ish. The author can't, the bookshops won't, and the traditional investor (the publisher) is out of the equation.