Well partly it's the accounting. Making a book is actually quite expensive compared to making other things, there's the costs of proof reading, the costs of pap

Well partly it's the accounting. Making a book is actually quite expensive compared to making other things, there's the costs of proof reading, the costs of paper stock, binding, artwork, distribution (books are heavy compared to CD's and much bigger). All of these things are real, actual costs. Then there's the RRP, most of the time this is a big chunk higher than the company pays for the book, so lets say the margin is ridiculous and it's 50%, so on a £20.00 book the publisher is getting £10.00 from the sale, then the costs of the book come out of it from there. And yes, writers have to sell a lot of books to make a living. I can imagine a lot of fairly well known writers probably make comparatively little compared to say, a software developer.