Those numbers are really scary :-(

Where I worked in retail this was actually quite common. However it was a completely different industry and in Europe not the states. Generally this was used to either create focus on a product they wanted to sell more of in the future or a new product that they wanted to push to the market.

That's pretty much what I assume as well. (Note my last paragraph where I actually claim that 15% probably is a higher cut than one can expect in other markets besides books).

40% is also (at least in other markets than books) just an average. I worked as an assistant manager in retail for several years and the markups vary highly. Some products everybody looses money on, from the producer through the retailer. Some products the retailer looses money on, and everybody else makes money off. Some products the distributor looses money on, and everybody else makes money on. That's just the way the market works. The most important factors for a working chain like this is that every link in the chain makes money at the end of the day, not on every single product.

I'm really not sure how unfair 40% seems. It's not unfair if one compares it with other markets. I think the 40% example was Amazon. I don't know enough about how things works with books to know how much work Amazon actually does, but as far as I can tell they are a retailer (and rely a lot on external distributors to do storage). If Amazons only actions are the shipping to end user, credit card handling, promotion and some storage, 40% seems a huge number to me. If they on the other hand actually do printing and storage themselves it might be a bit better.

Yes... Producer was definitely the wrong word. Perhaps "inventor" or "creator" would be more accurate?

To me it seems rather sad that the only way one can survive as an author is to be a "super star". It would please me greatly if more people could earn a fair living authoring books, but it's probably hard. One area I would like to see more focus on is the distribution links, that in our day and age should be possible to work around. I'm hoping for a future where bookstores become local "printers" that print books on demand from the customers, and any publisher (self publishing or through a publishing house) can sell their work through them. This would eliminate not only the huge cost of shipping, storage and handling, but also be more environmental friendly, and everybody would win (except Amazon and the other huge worldwide providers). Combine this with selling online e-books and e-book "kiosk" that support all reading devices at the local "printers" and I think the industry has a bright future for (almost) everybody.

I wouldn't. Simply because I'm not very into the kind of art one hangs on walls, or puts on tables. My do love my library though. To me there is something very special about books on shelves.

But it's all very individual I would think. I like nice cover art for two reasons: It looks good on my shelves (in my opinion), and I like reading a "beautiful" book. Sometimes when I'm just to tired to read I'll just look at the cover of the book until I fall asleep. (This probably makes me weird ;) )

No. It seems that I was to vague. My point was that even though the author deserves more than 15%, the whole 85% is not profiteering, although some of it most surely is.

Well. Further up somebody presented some numbers where 40% of the cake was taken by the distributer (I have no idea if these numbers are correct or not, but I'll assume they are for now). %40 percent seems quite a huge number, leading me to assume that if anybody is really profiteering here it's the distributors. This really isn't surprising. In a lot of markets one sees distributors and/or retailers doing most of the earning.

I'm in no way trying to defend publishers. I find the way many publishers abuse their power to keep the copyright on works they have no plans of doing anything more with just to avoid giving the author back his ownership of the work horrid. What I'm saying is that when it comes to the actual dividing of the cake, I'm not positive that the publishers are the worst, and that it is important to look at the whole chain not only one end of it.

It would be interesting to know how much of the final retail price the producer gets in other situations. How much does the producer of a cellphone earn of the retail price? The same for computers. The same for cucumbers and coffee beans. I'm rather afraid that doing this comparison would show that 15% actually is a rather large piece of the cake compared to other markets. And again, I'm not defending the fact that authors only get 15%, I'm just saying that this probably is a universal problem in no way limited to books.

Just because you feel that way doesn't make it a universal truth. I personally have many times choosen a more expensive version of a book simply because I favored its cover art (and vice versa a cheaper version because I favored its cover art).

Does the author deserve more than 15%? Most definately. Does that mean that 85% of the price is profiteering? Absolutely not.

Ps. I'm not saying CLI is for everyone, but if you like the idea of being as efficient as possible you definitely want to learn how to use a CLI.

It's amazing how much more efficient one can be when one really knows ones CLI. I've allways tried my darndest to be as efficient as possible when using a computer and over the last ten years I've started to rely on CLI more and more, and the more I rely on CLI the faster I get. These days I actually only need GUI for web browsing, and even there I use conkeror. Everything else is done in CLI.

Therein lies a great reason to hate Apple. The only reason Apple can get away with this is because they cater to a small crowd that is willing to pay big bucks for flashy equipment while bending over taking anything Apple sends their way. If apple didn't have their small crowd of abusees they would have to cater to a larger crowd and would have been taken down a long time ago, just like Microsoft. How do you think people would react if Microsoft put something in their Windows EULA forbidding you to develop software competing with their own core software? No, you cannot develop a browser for Windows. No you cannot develop an office suite for windows. No you cannot create a text-application for Windows.

People would scream bloody murder and sue them from here to Sunday. But since it's Apple catering to their small crowd of bent over abusees what we hear is "the simple fact is that the majority of apps are rejected because the developer took a chance and ignored the agreement".

I completely agree. And I've always done this (only shortened URLs when I absolutely need to) without even thinking about it before I read your post right now.

I also totally agree about annoying people who abbreviate everything all the time, almost as much as I hate people who use "write" in dialect.

I think the main problem with Twitter is that who ever created Twitter didn't seem to know what they were doing (and still don't - just look at the whole OAuth thing). Twitter could have been a great service if it was done right from the start. Unfortunately they started out with crappy code and even more crappy features, and though they try to fix things now and then they will never get there. This is actually a problem with a whole lot of services on the net nowadays. They don't become popular because they are well made, and they don't become well made because they are popular. Instead everybody "makes due" with what they get, and by the time somebody gets around to make a well made alternative the craze is over, or the original service has gotten so huge that the well made alternative just can't cut it.

"I'm thinking of buying 30 el-cheapo four-function calculators out of my pocket, but I'm afraid that less-adaptable students will be unable to handle the switch from the calculator they know to an unfamiliar (but simpler) one." Wait. What? College students taking physics should be able to handle a simple calculator, no matter what the make or model. If they aren't, I think they are in the wrong place.

Sure, but is performing a public service really worth killing any hope of a future career?

All businesses, in all shapes and forms. And yes a Norwegian work week is by law 37.5 hours, but that does not include overtime. However overtime is strictly regulated: how much overtime one can do in given periods (in a day, in a week, in a month and in a year), and one has to pay extra wages for overtime (set percentage of ones pay depending upon if the overtime is done on regular weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays or on national holidays). Oh, and if you didn't hire women you would be breaking the law. If you hired a man with lower qualifications than a woman who applied for the job, you would quickly find yourself in court. And it wouldn't help anyway, since paternity leave is mandatory by law. There is a way to get around this though. The owners of a business can work as much as they like, when ever they want. So if you want to run a small business with only a couple of people, you naturally start it with everybody as mutual owners of the business. The labor laws aren't really the problem for small businesses in Norway anyway. The taxation is the big problem.