Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
er... i must have missed something here. she was paid 25,000 and you say she made about $3 a book. 80,000x3 is 240,000, not 25,000. 25,000 for 80,000 books equals 31.25 cents per book.
|
Firstly, she didn't sell 80,000 books. The print run was 88,500 books in July 2008, with a RRP of $7.99. But the first two statements show that, of that 88,500, 27419 have been 'returned' (destroyed) by the end of May 2009, and the publisher expects another 13,790 or so to also be 'returned'.
So the actual sales of the print run are expected to be 47291. That's about 54% sell-though - a bit less than average, which I'm told is about 60% in the US.
Secondly, she didn't make $25,000, she made $50,000 - her advance on the book. The royalties due on the 47291 that sold were not $25,000 either - they were $30,155.69. About 8% of 47291*$7.99.
And what did the publisher make? Well, not 47291*$7.99. 55% goes to the distributor, the publisher's gross income was about 47291*$7.99*0.45 = just over $170,000. Out of which they needed to pay the author's advance - $50,000, and they had to pay for the print run. For 88,500 books, that's (say) $50,000. And the cover artist would be an up-front cost, say $2500.
So now their gross profit is $72,500. Out of which they must pay the for the typesetting, the editor, and all the other costs of running a publishing company.
So - for taking the risk of an actual outlay of over $100,000 cash, on a paperback that made it into the
Top 20 Bestsellers list, they made less than $75,000 dollars gross profit.
Just how many books do you think make it into the top 20 each month? And how many paperback books are published each month?
This book did extremely well for the publisher. Most will not, but will hopefully cover their costs. Some lose money.
The author made about $1 per sold book. If it goes into a second print run, and sells well, that might drop to $0.64 per sold book.
The publisher spent $2 per sold book. So far, the publisher has made $1.50 per sold book. If the book goes into a second print run and sells well, that might rise to $1.95 per sold book. Or if the second print run sells really badly, could drop to $0.75 per sold book.
Compared to the music business, publishing is amazingly good to the creative people.