Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
And that's exactly what they're paying the lion's share of profits for: validation. It has nothing to do with editing, proofing and all the rest of that gumpf (picking up any recent best-seller will prove that editing and proofing are long lost concepts).
Here's a breakdown of an author's actual sales figures, from a recent article on Publetariat.com ( http://www.publetariat.com/think/par...nal-publishers). These figures show his earnings with and without the publisher involved. |
figures snipped
Actually, all that proves is that per dollar of book, the publisher's books made (roughly) 27 cents and the self published made 35 cents, but it should also be noted that the different price points may have skewed the answer.
Without knowing a lot more details about the books and the customers, all you can say is that the extra effort for self publishing _might_ have paid back at this volume of sales. Eight extra cents, over the four self-published books ($400 each), might have paid back the extra work the author did. I doubt it represents a net profit to him. He'd have to do no more than 8 hours of work on each volume to ready it for publication.
Publishers often earn their money. The problem comes when their greed exceeds their marginal utility, and they try to use the law as a bludgeon to make people dance to _their_ tune.
Regards,
Jack Tingle