An interesting read on what it takes to get a fiction book to market. Perhaps if libraries understand the publisher market more we could make our budgets go further?
alg: P&Ls and how books make (or don't) money: part the first: the mass market original complete failure:
Barnes and Noble likes the cover -- they take 2,000, which is 1,000 more than they'd take if they hated the cover.
Waldenbooks hates the cover and is nervous that there are no blurbs -- they take 1,200.
Borders hates the cover, doesn't like that there are no blurbs, and, by the way, they are not convinced that yet another alternate reality romp is going to sell. They take 600.
The independent bookstores take about 600, too, for their own reasons, and the libraries take 900. Amazon takes 100.
WalMart doesn't like the title, Target is trying to push trade paperbacks, K-Mart has cut their book stock back by 50% and is stocking more magazines, Sam's Club votes with WalMart, and, because life doesn't suck enough, it turns out that Harlequin is doing some kind of special thing with Nora Roberts's backlist that month, so you can't get anything into the freaking drugstores and grocery stores.
...
Add it up. Your total cost on this book is $36,000. In USD, yes.
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