3 ms·
A print book costs less than $1 to print, $0.5 to handle/ship, and $0.5 to sort/shelve. Books cost around $10, and printing companies aren't growing unboundedly
by vortico 8y ago
A print book costs less than $1 to print, $0.5 to handle/ship, and $0.5 to sort/shelve. Books cost around $10, and printing companies aren't growing unboundedly, so the money has to go somewhere. It goes to the process that is shared between print books and e-books.
- mcguire 8y agoThe weird part about it is that all of the costs that are not per-copy, like editing, don't go down as the number of copies goes up. The author gets 10-15% of the first copy as well as the billionth copy. (Modulo the "advance", which is actually what most authors are payed for their book.) In other words, JK Rowling's editor made bank.
- vortico 8y agoWell, probably a more accurate way to say it is from the article >very successful authors (your JK Rowlings and James Pattersons) help pay the bills for the less successful books The editors don't just take home the money. They're paid a normal salary, and the publishing company uses the money to make additional risks. But these risks are mostly spent on editing costs.