Quote:
Originally Posted by EricDP
Which we've already established says it only costs about $8,000 - $20,000 in total. I would assume $8,000 is what would be invested in books expected to have low sales. Unless they have fewer than 8,000 sales, it would be less than $1/book. If only 4,000 sales, it's still only $2/book.
For the books expected to sell well, they could invest up to $20,000. I assume most of those books would certainly sell more than 20,000 copies, which means less than $1/book.
And yet these books are selling for >$10/book. Clearly those preparation costs are not the bulk of the costs to produce the books.
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No, they aren't. Consider what happens when a book is acquired.
A manuscript comes in from an agent. An acquiring editor reads it, decides it's a book her house can sell, and decides to make an offer. It may have to get kicked upstairs to get the publisher's approval if the offer is large enough. (There may be meeting about this to gauge interest and determine what efforts the publisher will make, like in the case of a possible best seller.)
The agent negotiates the exact contract with the publisher's contracts department, covering exactly which rights are being acquired, the advance offered, the royalty schedule, and various other details. A contract is finalized and the author gets a copy to sign and the specified advance.
(Note that in the case of a new author, a full manuscript will be required, to prove the author can
complete the book. An established author usually sells on the basis of a proposal, including an outline and sample chapters. In that case, the author will get partial payment up front, and the remainder on delivery of the completed manuscript.)
The completed manuscript gets line-edited - a detailed review by an editor (often the commissioning editor, but it doesn't have to be), to tighten and refine the manuscript and produce a book more likely to sell. The result of this is a revision letter detailing things the editor thinks need changes, and there's a back and forth till editor and author agree on a final form. (Most writers will admit this is crucial, and a good editor can help them make a good book into a great one.)
The final form gets copy edited and proofread to produce the version that will be published. Depending on the book, there may be a legal review, if the subject is controversial and the publisher sees a risk of getting sued. ("It's all true and we can prove it!")
Meanwhile, an Art Director is designing a cover and commissioning cover art, and jacket copy is assembled, and a book designer is designing the interior.
At some point here, there will be sales conferences where editors present the upcoming titles to the publisher's sales force, to let them know what they'll have to sell. Editors try to get the sales force enthusiastic about their titles, as enthusiastic sales people make better sales.
The completed final manuscript, along with jacket art and the like goes to DTP. DTP imports it into Adobe InDesign and does typesetting and markup based on the design specs. The result is a PDF file to go to the printer, who will feed it to an imagesetter to make the plates from which the book will be printed. If an ebook is part of the offering, that will be extra steps, as a PDF is likely not the desired ebook format, and someone else must take the manuscript and art and generate the ePub, MobiPocket, or whatever file.
The printer prints the specified number of copies. Binding may be done by the printer (for a PB), or handled by a binder (for things like hardcovers.)
The printed books go to the warehouse for distribution, and are shipped to big retailers and wholesalers based on orders received.
Each book will also get an allocated share of corporate overhead (rental on office space, electricity, phones, salaries of folks not directly involved involved in producing books), and there will be a reserve against returns.
The biggest variable is likely to be the size of the advance offered.
Most of the steps above happen before the book ever reaches the stage of being published, as a print volume or an ebook. Costs of print/bind/warehouse/distribute are perhaps 20% of the total.
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Dennis