Not really shipping is charged by weight, and books are heavy. At a certain point, it might be considered bulk, and the shipper might offer a discount to the book store, but I doubt you'll see the difference as the buyer pays for shipping before it's purchased. The bookstore I work for doesn't ship outside of the US-Canada because of this.

It depends. I have a little background working at a book store and looked into this issue. For small bookstores, it's really tough because, like you said, it's 20 for shipping one book, which is just a little high, but that's going to be largely the price. I wish it wasn't, but buying from a small book store isn't like buying from a large Corp that can get cheaper freight. It gets even more expensive when it comes to shipping to Germany or France as they require special insurance to dispose of packing material properly.