Re: We Interrupt This Submission . . .

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
Bill Swears wrote:
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
Bill Swears wrote:


I think not. (I have a friend who just made a deal with a distributor and has sold 3700 mysteries with a sell-through in excess of 90%. He's making something on the order of $4.00 a book after printing costs because he's technically the publisher).

How did he achieve this? Special connection? Years of pushing? Pure Luck?

Understand, I'm mostly just feeling grumpy because my perfectly good book is sitting in a pile that has four year old books residing unread in it.

My friend Stan Jones has an interesting situation. He published the first couple Nathan Active mysteries with Soho, and they did relatively well. He developed a bit of a following, and both of them were published in Germany. Then, his editor with Soho quit/died/joined a convent, I don't know, but was gone. The next editor didn't like Stan, or Nathan Active, and rejected the third book, which is actually supposed to be better than the first two.

The German publisher had a look at it, got it translated, and ran with it. But Stan Couldn't find anybody to take on the third book in a series that the home publisher didn't like. Since he'd already sold some in Germany, and he knew there was a market for the series, if he could get books out, he eventually took the bull by the horns and ponied up his own money for 2700 copies. He is being distributed someplace in the mid-west, by a regional, They don't exist no more, distributor, who gets very high sell through by moving the books from one store to the next, keeping them on shelves until they're all gone. They sold the first 2700 out between July and two months ago, so Stan ponied up for another thousand book print run. Which evidently was committed before the print run was complete.

So he had connections, prior publications, a following, and the money to print with. And worked for it. And sold 2700 books, may even reach 3700.

Digital Knight, which didn't even earn out, sold 7,000 copies. What's he selling his books for, and is he turning a profit with the books alone... or is it with the now-signed 4th book he'll be back to making money, having proven his case to the publisher.

Me, I'd rather actually write the book and let someone else do the rest. For which the publisher, note, doesn't get "90%". You get 10% (if hardcover) or maybe a bit more. The publisher gets some, but THEY also pay for the printing out of that money. The distributor gets their cut too. So does the bookstore. I.e., the publisher isn't SELLING the book for the cover price. The BOOKSTORE sells it for the cover price. The distributor sells it for about 40% less. And the publisher pays you and the distributor and the printer, etc., out of the money they get.

My guess is that of the actual money that would be profit to the publisher, the author's getting 25% or even more.


I don't know the answers, except that he has already made his profit on these print runs. He did tell us how much it cost him, but I didn't retain everything, and wasn't taking notes. I remember being pleasantly surprised at how reasonable the art and printing costs were, but I think Stan was risking a little more than 2k of his own money. I'll have to ask him now.

I think it's the distributor who's getting most of the actual cash money.

Finding Digital Knight, by the way, was a little annoying. I should get it in for Christmas. I think if you found a small publisher to reprint DK and sent it to a single distributor, you'd find that you could make money on the reprints. I think the national distribution is a lot costier up front than going with a small print - they make it back in volume, if there is volume.

Frozen North is going for 13.95 in Trade Paper. I'll get back to you when I find out what Stan's risk was.

Bill

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Relevant Pages

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