Many University presses make money by selling hard bound copies to academic libraries. When some of these books become popular, paperback copies are sold. Usual

Many University presses make money by selling hard bound copies to academic libraries. When some of these books become popular, paperback copies are sold. Usually, a hard bound copies are 3 to 4 times more expensive than paperbacks. Even when academic libraries acquire a paperback copy, they send these books for binding to preserve them for decades, if not centuries. Academics want their books to be published by 'reputed' publishers, so that these books can be accessible in libraries, unless a professor requests his library to acquire it. Now we have so many fiefdoms online: all Oxford University Press publications are available on oxfordscholarship.com. Every major publisher has its own online access. It is like online movie catalogues held by different companies. And no one has access to all of them. This is why even academics go and search on scihub and libgen sites for books, instead of going through their libraries. Academics want their works to be known to fellow academics and the public as well. That's the incentive, not royalty.