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Originally Posted by delphidb96
The interesting thing I found at BooksJustBooks.com right now (I haven't visited them for a while.) is that a 3,000 copy run of a basic MMPB was $0.65 each! That's for a single-color-text 5.5" x 8.5" size for about 120-160 pages. Not a big book, but still! So figure that a 10,000 copy print run would drop the per-copy 'cost-to-print-and-bind' at less than $0.40.
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They use Docutech for their POD mass market editions. You might want to look at one before thinking it's a solution. It is
not what major publishers use, and the costs for Docutech cannot be considered costs for a standard MMPB.
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However, as you and I both pointed out, distributor and retailer margins soak up a LOT of the cover price!
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They do.
My bigger concern is that there are an assortment of costs for a publisher in publishing a book, regardless of whether it is a paper or electronic edition.
You have the cost of acquiring the rights to the book, which will vary depending on perceived value of the book and projected possible sales. You have the time of the editor who acquires the book and does the line edits (which may be different editors), the costs of copy editing and proofreading, the cover art and interior art (if any), and the markup and typesetting to produce the copy that will be the basis of the printed book or the ebook, the cost of the ISBN, plus an allocated share of the overhead of the publishing house.
Those costs will be there whether the book is issued as an ebook or a pbook, and will set a floor on how low an ebook price can be and still make any money for the publisher.
I don't know at the moment just where that floor is (and it will vary depending upon the book,) but I suspect it is higher than a lot of folks would like to believe.
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Dennis