Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirtai
This is incorrect.
Advances, editing, art etc are all sunk costs. They're paid only once, amortized over the whole run and eventually can be paid off entirely.
Manufacturing is a marginal cost that is paid per book and never ends. (The same applies to royalties).
What this means is that as the number of book sold increases, the sunk costs count for less and less while the marginal costs become totally dominant and eventually the only real cost after the sunk costs are completely covered.
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You are forgetting about the fact that not all books are successful....so the successful ones have to subsidize the failures. there are a lot of failures.
The marginal profit has to also cover the overhead of the publisher on an ongoing basis, not just the fixed cost of the book....and the sunk cost.