Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
$50,000 per title as the assigned overhead is a figure that I've read multiple places. The overhead is neither a minimum or maximum, but a fixed cost. In theory it comes from adding up the fixed expenses of the publishing house, divided by the number of titles they publish in a year. It's for things like office space, staff salary, and any number of things that are not for a specific title.
|
Harper Collins publishes 10,000 new books per year, according to their website. If the overhead on *each book* is $50,000, that's $500,000,000 in operating expenses. According to you, that doesn't count things that are for a specific title, so it doesn't count the amount paid for a book cover, or ink to print a specific book, or paper for a specific book...or does it? If that *does* cover the ink, paper, cover artist, warehouse space, shipping expenses, then what expenses for a specific title are you talking about? Is it just the author's advance that you're talking about?
If the ink, paper, and warehouse space *are* included in those fixed expenses, then the argument that ebooks should be cheaper is valid. If they are not, then the publishing companies are wasting money on fancy offices in New York City and high salaries for their executives, and they deserve to fail.
If they are spending more money on things that are not specific to publishing than they are on the actual business of publishing, then, again, they deserve to fail.
Shari