Why are books so cheap now?

Publishers usually give books to bookstores or online stores at a discount of 58% below the book price. Regular bookstores in the market have to sell them to consumers at full price or at a small discount (such as 10% discount) because they have to pay rent and so on. The online shop's manuscript fee is much less than that of the bookstore, so you can sell books at low prices such as 60% discount and 6.5% discount.

As long as online stores don't sell pirated books, buying them in online stores can really save a lot. However, because the price of online stores is too low, bookstores also complain. Many bookstores said that Dangdang and other online stores disrupted the market, making it difficult for bookstores to survive.

If the online shop sells pirated books, of course, it is bought from pirates. Because piracy does not have to pay the author's manuscript fee, proofreading fee, typesetting design fee and binding design fee, it is printed with very cheap paper and ink, and even does not have to pay expensive office rent, so the cost is very low.