4 ms·
As soon as you involve Amazon, that's surprisingly not true. Really. O'Reilly makes more on e-book sales directly through their on-line store then they do on p
by pydanny 13y ago
As soon as you involve Amazon, that's surprisingly not true. Really.
O'Reilly makes more on e-book sales directly through their on-line store then they do on print. However, every e-book they sell via Amazon, their margins are very, very different. Here's a rough guide for a $40 book:
* O'Reilly E-Book Online Store: Approx 99% margin or $39.60
* O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00
* Amazon selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): Approx 90% margin or $36.00
* Amazon selling kindle e-book: 35% margin or $14.00 (minus the Amazon processing fee so it's actually worse)
Odds are the bulk of O'Reilly e-book sales are probably done on Amazon, where the margin is AWFUL. The constant huge sales by O'Reilly are a way to recoup the painful margins insisted upon by Amazon.
Yeah, Amazon makes boatloads off of kindle book sales.
- kops 13y ago<quote> * O'Reilly Store selling print book (bulk print discount assumed): 95% margin or $38.00 </quote> Is that really the kind of margins they operate at or is that a typo?
- thefrostytruth 13y agoNo. Those numbers above are ill-informed. But yes, the average print costs for a single-color book per unit are in the 2-4 dollar range (that is, manufacturing alone, no design, marketing, editing). And how would it be possible for Amazon to "keep their lights on" selling physical books at 40% off list price, if they pay O'Reilly $36 for a $40 book? Amazon buys from O'Reilly and most other pubs at 60% off, non-returnable. So the math for the publishers' take from Amazon on physical books looks like this: [list price] * [.4] - [print costs / overhead] - [author royalty]
- kops 13y agoThanks. I was mixing up margin with pre-tax profit.