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Originally Posted by Morlac
I can verify that the cost of paper and ink should be around $1/book, depending on size, page count, and print run.
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Is that $1 per book printed or sold? Also, what about shipping and warehouse costs?
Quote:
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If I want to produce a book, I have to pay an editor to go through the manuscript one or more times. Ditto for a proofreader/fact-checker. I have to pay an artist to lay the book out and another artist to do the cover and any interior illustrations. These costs can easily run several thousand dollars. If I'm only going to sell 3,000 copies of the book over its entire lifetime, I need to make more than $2 each just to cover those costs before I've done any sort of advertising, marketing, etc.
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Lets keep in mind though, that you are referring to text books, which are built around facts and also generally have a much more complicated layout than the average novel. A novel doesn't need the fact checker, and frankly, when I consider the layout in some novels, modern software can do as well if not better (And perhaps for some of these books, it already is doing that role).
Ultimately, though, I think that the costs can be trimmed quite a bit from many ebooks.
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Bill