Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
In my country the situation is probably the same as in yours. In North America though, because print runs are consistently (and sometimes vastly) higher than in European countries, the printing cost is really that low. But no, that does not necessarily include all of the additional costs you mentioned.
|
Press runs in America may be high, but I suspect an incremental cost of $1 per for a hardcover printing is way too low. The hardcover binding alone will likely be more than that.
In printing, about half your cost is setup and make ready: creating the plates from which books are printed, mounting them on the press, and printing test sheets to calibrate ink coverage, registration and the like.
Once that's done, the incremental cost to print one more copy of a volume is low, but that's "low" relatively speaking, and how low it will be is affected by a number of factors.
Quote:
|
Either way though... hardcovers have every chance of being good earners for publishers in North America.
|
They offer higher margins, assuming they sell at all. It's why Baen Books, for example, was happy to be able to transition to hardcover publisher from mass market paperback house. If they were still doing only MMPBs, they might not exist now.
______
Dennis