printing can be expensive when you go over the top with high quality pictures. there are ways to drive down the cost, by ensuring a very large amount of sales, or by going for the magazine printing process, basically printing it like a very thick issue of national geographic.

but when you look at an actual book, with hundreds of high quality pictures showing architecture, art from picasso, or nature photography or aerial and sattelite images of earth or astronomy pictures or whatever, as soon as it doesnt move in large numbers, such high prices are not unusual at all. you can find similar prices on amazon and in book stores when you look for books that are equally difficult to print.

what i dont like is that i have a suspicion that now that the book is out, NERD wont share anything for free anymore, like they used to. all their youtube videos about ball pythons have disappeared, the website lost content. this may have different reasons, but i am suspicious that they are cutting down on ways to get some of the information for free that is now in the book. i dont like that at all. they used to have really nice youtube videos, and helpful articles about genetics on their website. i dont want to be forced to buy the book just because they remove that stuff, so that the only way to gain any knowledge from NERD is now the book. if this really is a pattern now, i have to say its quite a disgusting marketing strategy. it implies that the community doesnt count, and people that dont buy the book can go screw themselves. if they would leave the website as it was and keep the youtube videos online, wouldnt that be good advertising for the book, like a free sample?

so im fine with the high price of the book. but if whats going on with their website and youtube channel really is part of a marketing strategy (i may be wrong, but i get the impression) then thats not OK with me. i dont know their other social media, if they also have a blog or facebook page and you are familiar with it, now would be the time to check if they removed stuff from there as well. throwing their community engagement and education efforts under the bus to sell a few more copies just isnt nice if it is true.