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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
Which would be why most of my books cost $2.99. However, it should be noted that when I released "Under Witch Moon" and "Executive Retention," I paid more for the artwork--so again, keep in mind that I'm working a bare-bones operation and my example left some expenses out.
There's also been some snafus for artwork--I don't always get what I *think* I'm paying for. Twice now I've commissioned art that has turned out to be something I cannot use.
I also have to pay for the graphics software--Gimp, Paint.net and Inkscape are fine for small editing projects, but they aren't powerful/efficient enough for the top efforts. Believe me, I tried to make them work, but recently had to get a new package. My old one was too old.
Publishers pay significantly more than I do for covers. Just because they are publishers they are going to have to shell out 500 to 1000 and up for covers. Even using stock art and having someone blend in all the fonts and so on runs 500 from what I'm told. (This is anecdotal evidence/heresy--but it matches what a lot of artists charge for some of the basic work, especially if they have a few trad publisher credits to their name.)
I'm not knocking the argument. I don't think backlist should cost 9.99 or more -- BUT I do think the costs to put backlist out there are higher than most people think, especially when all the various pieces are hired out.
If an author has to get a lawyer involved to get her backlist rights definitively returned to her (there are a lot of cases right now where publishers are making rights grabs) that's going to cost even more upfront.
The time involved is *enormous.*
I'm not knocking that either for the long-term potential benefits, but I *do* understand that by the time it all comes together some authors are going to feel an urgent need to make back some money on their investment!
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I agree with all your problems. Really, I do. I'm just trying to point out that all of them are upfront, one-time charges. Whether they make sense depends on the number of sales expected. at 10,000 sales, clearly profitable, 1,000 marginal and 100 clear loser. And which expenses should be counted. You use a computer do build and edit books. If you also use it for person use, how much of the price should be accounted to the books. Same for internet. i'm not trying to denegrate your costs, but it is sometime hard to put a number on them.
That's why I have problems with the high publisher prices for backlist. 1. they have historical sales records, and they also have done some of these before, they have an idea about sales yields for backlist items. 2. It has been done by niche publishers, with low overhead. And they have enough different authors to work with for the law of large numbers to work it's averaging. Not to mention their "big buyer" discount for things like covers.
I think that's the problem, too high of overhead by the big publishers.