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Pulpmeister · 05-22-2012, 11:04 PM

I have had three books published. They were all published commercially--ie not vanity publishing--and they were all highly specialised nonfiction niche books with a potential market from tiny to unknown.

If the publishers hadn't been game enough to take a punt, and carry the financial risk, none of them would have been published. Fortunately, they all got their money back, two of the three sold out (eventually) and the third is still in print.

Publishers are not evil. They want good authors that the public likes, and they all hope to find a new unknown author who goes through the roof--J K Rowling was an unknown who did just that.

One thing to remember is that when a book sells for 25 dollars cover price, and the author gets ten percent of cover, as I did (and do), the remaining 90 percent isn't profit to the publisher. It's just income which has to cover overheads as well as the capital cost of preparing, marketing printing and distributing the book.

A lot of books never make a profit at all. Like movies, there are expensive flops. Every so often the UK investigative journalism/satirical magazine Private Eye runs a list of worst-sellers, putting highly advertised advances against numbers sold. It makes sobering reading when a 50 thousand pound advance on a highly touted book results in (as in one case) 257 copies being sold.

I self-published a digital edition of my first book some years ago, as a CD-ROM (a website on a disc)--it had a lot of text and 800 photos, many in colour, I'd never heard of e-books, and it wouldn't work on a Kindle anyway. I eventually got all my money back and have now made a modest profit, but I was sweating for a while.

Publishing printed books is a huge gamble.

If you want to talk about exploitation, think of websites such as social networks, youtube, etc; these are basically digital on-line magazines/cum TV stations which get all their content for nothing, on which to hang their adverts. The publisher's dream. Sure it's handy to park your video clips on youtube to share, but its even handier for youtube.

The authors/photographers etc get nothing but dubious satisfaction.

05-22-2012, 11:04 PM	#37
Pulpmeister Wizard Posts: 2,827 Karma: 29145056 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Perth Western Australia Device: kindle	I have had three books published. They were all published commercially--ie not vanity publishing--and they were all highly specialised nonfiction niche books with a potential market from tiny to unknown. If the publishers hadn't been game enough to take a punt, and carry the financial risk, none of them would have been published. Fortunately, they all got their money back, two of the three sold out (eventually) and the third is still in print. Publishers are not evil. They want good authors that the public likes, and they all hope to find a new unknown author who goes through the roof--J K Rowling was an unknown who did just that. One thing to remember is that when a book sells for 25 dollars cover price, and the author gets ten percent of cover, as I did (and do), the remaining 90 percent isn't profit to the publisher. It's just income which has to cover overheads as well as the capital cost of preparing, marketing printing and distributing the book. A lot of books never make a profit at all. Like movies, there are expensive flops. Every so often the UK investigative journalism/satirical magazine Private Eye runs a list of worst-sellers, putting highly advertised advances against numbers sold. It makes sobering reading when a 50 thousand pound advance on a highly touted book results in (as in one case) 257 copies being sold. I self-published a digital edition of my first book some years ago, as a CD-ROM (a website on a disc)--it had a lot of text and 800 photos, many in colour, I'd never heard of e-books, and it wouldn't work on a Kindle anyway. I eventually got all my money back and have now made a modest profit, but I was sweating for a while. Publishing printed books is a huge gamble. If you want to talk about exploitation, think of websites such as social networks, youtube, etc; these are basically digital on-line magazines/cum TV stations which get all their content for nothing, on which to hang their adverts. The publisher's dream. Sure it's handy to park your video clips on youtube to share, but its even handier for youtube. The authors/photographers etc get nothing but dubious satisfaction.