"...because they didn't have all the printing/distribution/return/etc. costs associated with dead tree versions. In fact, these costs were pretty trivial (maybe

"...because they didn't have all the printing/distribution/return/etc. costs associated with dead tree versions. In fact, these costs were pretty trivial (maybe $2/copy as I recall)." The weird part about that is that, back in the 80s-90s, book prices took a big hike and the publishers blamed paper prices. Their reasoning is amazingly flexible. Also note that all of the non-printing, etc., costs are one time affairs. Except for the distribution channels, which take ~50% of the cover price (and which don't apply to e-books).