With this in mind, it sounds like a perfect use case for sci-hub.
I don't think it's necessarily so altruistic - there are a number of benefits to writing a book that go beyond the monetary incentive.
That said, yes, these authors almost never even cover their own expenses (opportunity cost) when writing these books, let alone turn a profit. The "real" profits[0] go to the publishers.
[0] if any! Publishers operate like venture firms in this regard - they make most of their money off of the blockbuster hits, and there's a long tail of books that are unprofitable or very close to unprofitable.
Not really true for specialist academic work publishers, they don't (and shouldn't) expect books to become hits, rather they operate a volume game. A specialist book might sell 200-500 copies so to make profit they essentially have to publish a large volume of books at a high-price point. A typical editor at such a firm will typically have to publish 1-2 books a week to make the economics work out.
It doesn't really apply for journal publishing either although at most publishers more establish journals will typically subsidize the the newer ones (a new journal can easily take 5-10 years to reach break-even point).
It is true for academic publishers as well; the difference is that 'hit' is qualified differently (something that becomes a standard textbook for undergraduates, even in a specialty niche - or at a higher level, something that becomes commonly cited enough that it is used by a large (relatively) number of academics, libraries, etc.)
Yes, I am aware of that.
Swartz created the push for open access (and bad reporting that this ars article doesn't mention the mass resignations at Elsevier over that issue as far as I can see)
So this site is only a good thing in my opinion.
Elsevier response: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/addressing-the-resignation-...
.. Morons are as good as claiming Wikipedia is not sustainable because they don't charge editors 1800$ to edit an article...
That excludes Stewart's calculus, and many others.
If an author received a grant specifically to write a book on a topic, then I'd say yes. This is rarely, if ever, the case.
With research, however, it is the norm not the exception that they are paid for or subsidized through some form of public funding.