Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
So you wanna get specific, huh? 
$10 cover price
$2.50 royalty
$3.30 retailer's cut
$4.20 is publisher's cut
If we ignore taxes, and conversion costs $10k, that's 2300 copies to break even. If conversion costs $7500, that's 1700 copies.
$5 cover price
$1.25 royalty
$1.50 retailer's cut
$2.25 is publisher's cut
$10k conversion is 4,444 to break even. It may be plausible that the book will sell twice as much at half the price, but it's hardly guaranteed.
Or, to look at it another way: Let's say you run Penguin, and you get your conversion costs down to $2000 per title. If you convert 200 titles, that's still going to cost you $400,000. (Or, let's say you hire a staff of 8 at $50k a year each, and each staffer converts 25 books per year). At the $5 price point, Penguin will need to sell 175,000 copies of those 200 titles just to break even. |
Ya know, I see all kinds of numbers being thrown around in thread after thread, but hardly anybody ever
documents where their numbers come from. So, where are you getting these prices/percentages from, and why should I believe them instead of the numbers on Joe Schmuckatelly's blog?