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Your math is a bit wonky and you are missing some aspects of the traditional publishing contract. The traditional publishing deal involves the author getting a
by olefoo 14y ago
Your math is a bit wonky and you are missing some aspects of the traditional publishing contract.
The traditional publishing deal involves the author getting an advance (cash up front) which they do not have to pay back unless they fail to deliver the manuscript. So the publisher takes on the risk that the book won't cover it's advance. The publisher also manages book production and distribution and publicity, to do those things the publisher keeps staff on hand in some fairly expensive office space ( publishing happens in Manhattan, or used to ). All of which add up to a pretty good deal for authors whose work is salable.
With Amazon or Apple, the author takes on the risk, and all the costs of production ( poorly edited ebook only editions aren't going to sell as well as actual books ) and all the costs of marketing and promoting their work. The only thing that's taken care of is distribution; for which they give up 30%, not the actual cost of distribution.
So the new deal is riskier and less certain ( if you pay an editor, a book designer, a publicist etc. ) you might wind up losing money.
- CurtMonash 14y agoIn theory, the advance is just an advance, and publishers could ask for the portion back that is not covered by royalties. However, they almost never do that. It's one of the few ways in which publishers actually behave decently towards authors.
- ryguytilidie 14y agoSo you're saying we should expect this to change very soon?
- olefoo 14y agoWell, part of that is that authors are not as a rule gifted with assets, so it's a fruitless task to recover money from them. The other part is that it looks bad. And the third leg is that that is how commercially successful authors subsidize the unsuccessful.
- coldtea 14y ago>Your math is a bit wonky What math? I only put some numbers forward. Didn't even do addition. What I said is that for most technical books, 4000 copies is not that far off the mark. Or $12000 dollars. And, thanks for clarifying that, the amount includes the advance. Note also that not all publishers give an advance, not all authors get an advance, and some authors even PAY to get their books published and/or promoted. As for the publisher doing all those wonderful things, that's more about traditional publishing (and back in the day). With technical publishing, today, you get far fewer niceties.