On the Behavioral Economy of the Book World ‹ Literary Hub

An economist's attempt to explain behavior in publishing or any other domain typically begins with the cost-benefit principle: an action should be taken if and only if the benefits of taking it exceed the corresponding costs. The principle sounds transparently simple, but because costs and benefits are often difficult even to conceptualize, much less measure with any precision, it is often challenging to apply. One thing the principle makes clear, however, is that if monetary rewards were all that mattered to potential authors, the list of people for whom writing a non-fiction book might make sense would be vanishingly small-mainly a handful of celebrities and a few others with inside knowledge of particular topics of keen public interest. Works of fiction are even less likely to succeed financially.