Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
1) All acquisition costs and editorial costs:
The author's advance (including agent's commission), the cost of both editing and proofing the manuscript.
2) Art costs:
Cover art needs to be commissioned and paid for.
3) Advertising and marketing costs:
One of the biggest advantages of going with a recognized publisher is that they do handle advertising and marketing.
4) *Layout and typesetting costs*:
I'm starring this one because a case can be made that it's not strictly necessary for reflowable formats, but even they often look better when hand laid out. (Look at Zelda's wonderful "Three men in a Boat" for an example.) However, many companies still release in PDF, and that does require the same layout and typesetting as paper.
5) General overhead costs:
Everything from rent to lights to secretaries. All those costs that every business has to cover.
None of those costs go away from a move to e-only initial publication.
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Going down the list:
1) Stays constant, obviously. Of course that means that if you sell e-books
in addition to printed copies, the cost is spread among more sales, and the costs for all formats should go down. But you can take as given that publishers will always claim that all e-book sales are cannibalizing a paper sale, even if total sales numbers increase.
2) Is a non-issue on many commercial e-books, since they don't include cover art.
3) Again, a non-issue on the vast majority of books, regardless of format, since they receive precisely zero marketing or publicity from the publisher.
4) A middle case, as you pointed out yourself. Obviously *some* costs are involved here.
5) Again, stay constant overall, but again, see (1) above on why this should mean cheaper prices on
all formats, but won't.
You've left out a huge piece of the actual cost of a paper book, though - returns. When 35% of your print run ends up pulped in a landfill that drives up the proportion of the cost each individual book sold needs to recoup significantly. Returns on e-books run in the tens and hundreds, not the tens and hundreds of thousands, and that's an enormous saving.
Further, do keep in mind that the current aberrant reliance on creating a certain number of hardcover bestsellers per year (and bestsellers are made, not born) is a comparatively recent thing that has a lot more to do with tax law than anything inherent in the act of publishing.