Or maybe they bought a hideaway in Mallorca. Are you suggesting they figured out how to get rich on poetry?
I do all my own design work. Easy--I only do one book most years. But say I didn't. I'll accept your L200 for design. Add L300 for cover design. I do about 100 copies hors commerce, for the poet, friends of the press, and critics.That's about L700-L900. In this country mail is L1.50 per, or L150 for the lot. So say L1500. There are still office costs and salaries for that probable 4. But leave that aside. That's L90K. It adds up. Even if alldesign is done in office that time also has to be paid for.
But really, what point are you making? We all wish the economics of our practice were better.
-----Original Message-----
>From: David Lace <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jul 19, 2013 4:58 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Fwd: Salt poetry editor Roddy Lumsden=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s _?=comments about the BritPo list.
>
>Mark, ok, let’s assume that design per book is £200; stamps and envelopes and postage cost per book to send out review copies and complimentary copies is £5 per book; and about £10 to do each POD (I don’t know how much PODs cost so this is a blind guess). If they, say, published 60 books a year, which I read somewhere this was about the number, the total cost of production for each book comes to £12,900 a year. That leaves £167.100 change, which must have been spent on salaries and hiring some staff. Let’s assume that Salt hire two staff, that this £167.100 is divided equally between these two staff and Hamilton-Emery and his wife. This comes to £41,750 each. I only divide it equally for simplicity purposes, obviously Hamilton-Emery and his wife would have the bigger share. This is a good income indeed--especially as it was given to them.
>
>Let’s say each book was sold for £8.99 and only 500 were sold a year, this comes to £4,495. They may have sold more, though, which is likely given their success in the early days. So this £4,495 is not a bad income on top of a large grant. As they would not have to sink this back into production costs it could be added to their salaries.
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