Why are books fine? Publishers don't print to order. The publisher has already printed thousands before you'd even heard of the book. The only marginal cost her

Why are books fine? Publishers don't print to order. The publisher has already printed thousands before you'd even heard of the book. The only marginal cost here is delivery, and that delivery person is already likely to be going down your street with a van full of goods whether you order or not. The marginal cost is just them adding the extra stop and unload for you, which is probably pennies. Or if you go to a bookstore that already had it on the shelf, it's practically zero marginal cost. Everything is an exercise in amortization. You seem happy to amortize the obvious parts (printing, binding, stocking, delivering), but not the behind the behind the scenes parts (writing, editing, marketing). That's a crappy distinction.