I hate to niggle with a writer coach, but seriously, you think I was paying $10/copy for books to sell!? In 1995 when printing several thousand books (160 acid-free pages, color laminated cover, perfect bind), they were just over a dollar each, for a "risk" of barely over $3,000, not $15,000. The cover price was $11, from which I got the…
I hate to niggle with a writer coach, but seriously, you think I was paying $10/copy for books to sell!? In 1995 when printing several thousand books (160 acid-free pages, color laminated cover, perfect bind), they were just over a dollar each, for a "risk" of barely over $3,000, not $15,000. The cover price was $11, from which I got the author royalty, the publisher's cut, and (the vast majority sold direct) the distributor's cut. Not a great risk, either: the first 3,000 sold out and I had to order another 3,000 just to get me through the first year and a half. (Today, more than a quarter century later, the cover price is $17, soon to be $19.) Book rate shipping was deliciously cheap back then too, so I charged a flat $1 for domestic shipping, which encouraged multi-copy sales.
You may then argue about pre-press costs. They were "typeset" by me using Ventura Publisher, output to my 600 dpi laser printer. The only thing I had to farm out was color separations for the cover, and I knew where to go to get them quite cheaply. Bottom line: I wasn't just scrappy about how to create and publish a newsletter, which was a necessity in those days before ESPs and CMSs, that carried over to the books, too.
I hate to niggle with a writer coach, but seriously, you think I was paying $10/copy for books to sell!? In 1995 when printing several thousand books (160 acid-free pages, color laminated cover, perfect bind), they were just over a dollar each, for a "risk" of barely over $3,000, not $15,000. The cover price was $11, from which I got the author royalty, the publisher's cut, and (the vast majority sold direct) the distributor's cut. Not a great risk, either: the first 3,000 sold out and I had to order another 3,000 just to get me through the first year and a half. (Today, more than a quarter century later, the cover price is $17, soon to be $19.) Book rate shipping was deliciously cheap back then too, so I charged a flat $1 for domestic shipping, which encouraged multi-copy sales.
You may then argue about pre-press costs. They were "typeset" by me using Ventura Publisher, output to my 600 dpi laser printer. The only thing I had to farm out was color separations for the cover, and I knew where to go to get them quite cheaply. Bottom line: I wasn't just scrappy about how to create and publish a newsletter, which was a necessity in those days before ESPs and CMSs, that carried over to the books, too.