The cost of advertising also is extremely expensive as a full page color ad in VFW or American Legion magazine runs more than thirty thousand dolars for one issue. The country is broken down into three regions, East Coast, Mid West and West Coast. Advertising can be run in a magazine by region or the entire country, the latter costing the full price. Obviously, small presses can not afford the advertising costs in major magazines for a sustained period of time.
There are also heavy costs if a lot of photos (particularly color) are included in a book that raises the price substantially. And the initial typesetting is expensive, but this is a one time only charge as the negatives and plates are used for more than one print. These are just some of the costs that raise the prices of books other than the more obvious costs for overhead, lawyers, authors etc.
Usually a book, for the purpose of distribution and cost can be looked upon as a vase, with the neck representing the hard copy, the middle as the soft cover and the bottom as the remainder which is the least expensive way to buy a book. The average life span of a book (except reference books) is about six months before it passes down the neck.For example, Colin Powell's book initially came out in the winter of 1993 at a price of $23.00, later moved to soft cover and now it probably sells at a low remainder price.