Thankyou for all the favorable comments. Regarding the price, it was driven by two things:
1. It is the length of 2 books. The average coffee table book is less than 300 pages. This is 624 pages. I looked into making it 2 separate volumes with a slip case but that increased the price even more and takes away from the coffee table concept. But the purchaser is getting the equivalent of two books.
2. The book was written for a small number of people. People with interest in Twin Commanders and Aerostars. So only 1020 copies were printed (I ordered 1000 but a printer normally goes over, and charges for the overage too.) This is such a low number that no publisher would take the book. So I became my own publisher. (I don't recommend it, but when you are new at the game you learn by doing). A low run for a printer is typically 5,000 or 10,000. The cost per book for an ultra small run is much higher. I also wanted to use an American printer which costs slightly more, and I wanted a premium cover material. The fixed costs for the book had to be divided by the low number of books printed. Graphics were very expensive and required over 6 months of teamwork to get photo sizes, captions, positioning etc right.
The entire effort to do the research, write the manuscript, have it proofed, search for a cover artist, printer, and graphic artist, and then do layout took from 2007 to 2019.
