OK, revised figures, this time from the horse's mouth: Cost of physically producing a hardcover commercial book: 10% of retail price; royalty: 15%; overhead (all costs not accountable to a particular book): 15%; profit (theoretically): 10%; retail markup at bookstore: 50% of retail price (100% markup).
Most of the cost of production is paper. The price of paper went up several years ago but is now flat, as is the rest of production cost, mostly because of increased efficiencies. In my original figures, I confused % of retail price with % of publisher's cost, so since the publisher's cost is 40% of the retail price, production is 25% of that, or 10% of retail price.
My pet peeve. I went to Barnes and Noble this weekend to look for two conservative books. One was "The New Thought Police" by Tammy Bruce and one was "Radical Son" by David Horowitz. B & N didn't have either, although the Bruce title is new and current and the Horowitz title is fairly well known. I read once where the CEO of B & N was a left-winger and a friend of the clintons. I couldn't help wondering if politics as well as business plays a role in what the big stores stock. Well, too bad for B & N, I ordered through Amazon, and the Horowitz was on their used list for $3.75. Did get to read a book for free while sitting in B & N, only paid for a cup of coffee, they don't mind a bit.