> Essentially you're paying someone to work hard and labor on a topic you are interested in for years; and distill that years of research into a few hundred pages so that you don't have to do all the work.

I am doing no such thing. Sure, some of my purchase price will go back to the author and in aggregate with other purchasers they may be fairly repaid for their labours. But the book is worth whatever I was prepared to pay for it.

What you proposed was the Labour Theory of Value; a thing is worth the effort and talent put into it. Intuitively attractive, but it breaks down in economic practice. If instead you accept that things are worth what people will give up for them -- the Subjective Theory of Value -- economic analysis requires fewer epicycles and illuminates more phenomena.