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> Publishers operate like venture firms in this regard - they make most of their money off of the blockbuster hits, and there's a long tail of books that are un
by ig1 11y ago
> Publishers operate like venture firms in this regard - they make most of their money off of the blockbuster hits, and there's a long tail of books that are unprofitable or very close to unprofitable.
Not really true for specialist academic work publishers, they don't (and shouldn't) expect books to become hits, rather they operate a volume game. A specialist book might sell 200-500 copies so to make profit they essentially have to publish a large volume of books at a high-price point. A typical editor at such a firm will typically have to publish 1-2 books a week to make the economics work out.
It doesn't really apply for journal publishing either although at most publishers more establish journals will typically subsidize the the newer ones (a new journal can easily take 5-10 years to reach break-even point).
- chimeracoder 11y ago> Not really true for specialist academic work publishers, they don't (and shouldn't) expect books to become hits It is true for academic publishers as well; the difference is that 'hit' is qualified differently (something that becomes a standard textbook for undergraduates, even in a specialty niche - or at a higher level, something that becomes commonly cited enough that it is used by a large (relatively) number of academics, libraries, etc.)
- ig1 11y agoThe market for undergraduate textbooks is completely different from that of post-grad level specialist texts. The economics are very different due to the fact that the people making purchase decisions (i.e course directors, etc.) are different from the people who pay (students).
- chimeracoder 11y ago> The market for undergraduate textbooks is completely different from that of post-grad level specialist texts. The economics are very different due to the fact that the people making purchase decisions (i.e course directors, etc.) are different from the people who pay (students). Yes, I am aware of that.