I will chime in and say the book is no doubt worth every penny, but I also understand the "sticker shock" some may feel. I wrote a couple of computer programming books years ago, and had the same experience: the books sold for around $40 (and were not "fancy" at all - just text), and I got $2 for each book sold. I think I calculated once that I had made a couple of dollars per hour or some such amount. So in these cases both the author[s] and the consumer[s] suffer "disadvantages" but there are sometimes benefits that go beyond the time or money you invest. - B. Clay Shannon From: Kevin Mac Donnell <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2017 4:27 PM Subject: Re: Use of the N-word I'm entirely sympathetic. If you look through reviews of recent scholarly books in the Mark Twain Forum you'll see that the hardback editions are expensive. Unlike mass market books, scholarly books are published in small editions; consequently the unit prices are much higher. Also, scholarly books seldom get picked up for movie rights. The scholars who contribute to these books are paid "modest" one-time fees for their writing, which, if divided by the hours consumed in researching and writing, would fall well below the minimum wage. Sometimes you can buy a paperback or ebook version for much less than the hardback price. This is the brutal law of economics at work, and I'm afraid I don't have a solution. Kevin @ Mac Donnell Rare Books 9307 Glenlake Drive Austin TX 78730 512-345-4139 Member: ABAA, ILAB ************************* You may browse our books at: www.macdonnellrarebooks.com -----Original Message----- From: ANTON & SUSAN VERHULST Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2017 2:30 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Use of the N-word > > On January 4, 2017 at 3:06 PM Kevin Mac Donnell > <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > How about a shameless promotion of a book to which I contributed a > chapter > that discusses this topic? The book is a collection of essays by > various > folks, edited by R. Kent Rasmussen, called CRITICAL INSIGHTS: > ADVENTURES OF > HUCKLEBERRY FINN. It's due out any second from Salem Press. > At US$105.00, I'm afraid that I'll have to pass on this - http://tinyurl.com/gt9e6tx. sigh. Tony