paper

Evidence

"Whereas it is well established that paper was the principal cost of book production, locking up considerable capital, there are too many unknown factors to even guess what the profit margins of Müteferrika’s books were."

Remarks

The paper identifies paper as the most substantial cost component in the operations of the first Ottoman Muslim printing house (p. 32). This capital-intensive nature of book production meant that paper availability and cost were central to the commercial viability of Ibrahim Müteferrika's pioneering business efforts, which ultimately failed to generate sustainable profits (p. 32).