Rimi B. Chatterjee examines a pirated book she bought at an intersection in Delhi.

 Look also at the maths. A cover price of Rs 295 (the same as City of Love) yields to the publisher only about Rs 180 since booksellers buy at heavily discounted prices. If we remove from this price the author’s royalty (since pirates don’t pay royalty) assuming that the author gets 7.5% of cover price, that gives about Rs 157. Of this, there is an editing component and a manufacturing component. Let us assume that the average editing component per book is about Rs 50 (fiction costs less to edit than non-fiction). That leaves Rs 107 for manufacture. Since pirates have lower overheads and pay no taxes, Rs 100 as cover price is fairly good.