[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes and no. Manufacturing, warehousing and distribution add up to a total cost for the title. The total amount varies depending on the press run, as does the amount per book.

These three are per-unit costs: the more units produced, the more manufacturing, warehousing & distribution costs. (Perhaps it's "per crate" rather than "per unit;" shipping differences between 1000 books and 1005 may be nothing, but there are cost differences between shipping 1000 and 2000 books.)

Editing and formatting will vary somewhat depending upon the book.

Yes--but it's *per title*, not per unit. The editing & formatting cost the same whether the publisher sells 1500 copies or 15000. And while costs-per-title vary, they can be averaged by a publisher, at least across individual genres.

I want the cost estimates released by publishers to say what print run they're assuming for the "$.80 per book" editing and formatting costs. Because if they sell three times as many as they expect, those costs are lower.

No. First, you have to assume editing costs will be the same for an ebook as for a paper volume. The same operations must be performed.

However, if the book is being released in both formats, they don't need to be done *twice.* A small bit of formatting is done differently for the two versions (just as it's done differently for hardcover & paperback release), but the main editing & proofreading work is done only once; estimated costs for that shouldn't be duplicated for both pbook and ebook.

And the fact that it's an ebook (or print on demand, for that matter), is irrelevant. You expect the book to sell X number of copies, or you wouldn't publish it to begin with.

But an ebook doesn't have extra production costs if it turns out popular and sells 2X copies. Its cost-per-sale for editing, overhead & advances drop at that point.

Baen can't be used as representative, for several reasons.
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Bottom line, Baen's model works for them, but doesn't apply to other publishers.

Baen has found a way to cut costs and effectively market ebooks, and these methods are inapplicable to other companies? Other publishers are incapable of finding lower rents, hiring contractors, and cultivating loyal customers?

I'm aware not every publisher can or should copy all of Baen's methods, but saying "Baen is only successful because they found a way to make ebooks cheaper" is not convincing me that the Big 6 are doing things right. What, Random House can't hire independent contractors to do their ebook conversions?

The point I was making is that, according to the "compare ebook to pbook costs" lists given by mainstream publishers, Baen should be bankrupt. They're selling ebooks below the cost the big publishers claim it takes to produce them. So obviously, those aren't anything like absolute costs of ebook production; they're the cost of inefficient ebook production. (Also, I notice they don't directly mention the cost of adding DRM.) I'm not sympathetic to publishers that say "we have to charge this much for ebooks because we can't be bothered to find a better way to make them."