Some clarification on charles Stross's views on the costing of printing :
Quote:
15:
Rick: of the steps I outline in commercial genre fiction publishing, just three (14-16 inclusive) relate to publishing books on paper. The rest are still needed for ebooks.
This is why the folks who think that moving production towards ebooks will drive costs down are so wrong.
A print run of 5000 hardbacks ... each book weighs around 600 grams, but of that, only around 400 grams is paper. So we're talking about 2.5 tons of processed wood pulp. Paper simply isn't that expensive. My understanding is that the physical process of buying the paper and printing those book blocks will cost around $2-3 per unit, or around $10-15,000 ... roughly as much as the other production costs, and the author's advance.
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