As a rough guide, on a manufactured good (which books are), you expect roughly 1/3 of the retail costs to cover materials. Then 1/3 goes to the manufacturer, and 1/3 goes to the retailer to cover their costs. Since most publishers don't sell direct to bookstores, in this case the retailer is the distributer.
So on a $10 paperback (which is basically what we're up to these days), about $3.33 covers paper, copyediting, manuscript acquisition, typesetting... That is not very much money, and it has to go cover a lot of tasks. And since the distributor is actually paying *wholesale* for the book, it's going to be out of a lot less than $10.
Not a great scene. Electronic books do a lot to cut distributor costs, but they don't do a great deal for publisher costs. And they (generally) still go through a distributor, which means there's two businesses between you as a customer and the publisher... and those other businesses still need their cut.
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mmmag
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Date: 2010-02-12 05:21 pm (UTC)So on a $10 paperback (which is basically what we're up to these days), about $3.33 covers paper, copyediting, manuscript acquisition, typesetting... That is not very much money, and it has to go cover a lot of tasks. And since the distributor is actually paying *wholesale* for the book, it's going to be out of a lot less than $10.
Not a great scene. Electronic books do a lot to cut distributor costs, but they don't do a great deal for publisher costs. And they (generally) still go through a distributor, which means there's two businesses between you as a customer and the publisher... and those other businesses still need their cut.