http://news.shelf-awareness.com/nview.jsp?appid=411&j=80634
Started in 1997, Lightning has printed more than 27 million books “one at a time.” It now has some 350,000 titles in its digital library, 12 printing “lines,” 4,200 publishing partners and is manufacturing more than a million books a month. The average print run, Best said, is “1.8 copies.” Some 81% of the books have retail prices between $9 and $25.99.

Publishers set the retail price and on a typical $24.95 title, after the 55% wholesale discount and printing cost of about $3.50, $7.73 is remitted to the publisher. “It’s cheaper to print with Donnelly,” Best acknowledged. “But then on most of these titles, the publisher would miss the sale.”

”They are not paying out that much money to a 17-year-old with no track record,” said Boston literary agent Doe Coover. ”They are paying it to this organization which has had huge hits aimed at a similar audience.” And some wondered who is looking out for the creator of the work.

”If they [Alloy] get co-copyright, 50-50 of the money and 15 percent for the agent, that’s not a great deal for the author,” said John Taylor Williams, a Boston agent and publishing lawyer.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The power of the blogosphere
In just one day, before it has been released, and with literally nothing more in the way of marketing and publicity than a handful of bloggers discussing it and a very committed and passionate blog readership here, How Would a Patriot Act? went to #1 on the Amazon Top Sellers List last night, and it sits there currently. Both thank you and congratulations are in order for everyone who helped make that happen, especially the regular readers of this blog and the other bloggers who have supported both this blog and the book, and I want to make a few observations about why I think this is so potentially significant:

(1) This book is a pure blogosphere book. The book’s ideas and arguments were developed almost exclusively as a result of writing this blog. The research was done primarily by blog readers who worked with me on the book, and I discovered many of the arguments and much of the evidence that comprise the book as a result of reading comments here as well as the posts of other bloggers.

The publisher, Working Assets, approached me about writing the book as a result of their reading this blog. They were willing to commit to the book, first and foremost, because they were committed to publicizing the ideas and arguments in it. But the fact that the liberal blogosphere along with more independent and centrist bloggers would likely discuss and support the book enabled them to feel comfortable that the book — just from blogs alone — had a viable marketing base. They were obviously right about that.

The key thing about the book, IMHO, is the topic: the Patriot Act is a massively shared pet peeve.