For those who don't run presses, here's a quick lesson in economics:
In the US at any rate to receive grants large enough to pay for the
considerable time spent satisfying the application requirements a
press has to produce a large volume of new titles every year, which
means that running it is a fulltime job, which means that salaries
are involved, at least for the press' owner.
The vicious circle: no small press can afford to pay salaries unless
it receives grants.
Here's why. If I market a book at $10, $1 (whether in cash or books)
goes to the writer, $2 to the printer (less with greater volume, but
then there's storage to pay and a lot of unsold books), $4 to
retailers, between $6.00 and $7.50 if sold to a distributor. Which
leaves $3 if sold to a bookstore (or the author--after his free
copies I give a 40% discount, which is pretty standard), at best $1
if sold to a distributor. Out of that pittance comes all other
expenses--the free copies that go to critics, libraries of record,
friends of the press, etc., any outside services like designers (I
design all of Junction's books--it's fun, but also I don't get paid),
storage, advertizing, damaged return copies, etc. If I discount to
list members I wind up with $5, if I sell a copy at cover price ( not
many of those) $7.
The bookstore that gets $4, but only when the book sells, has to pay
rent and utilities and usually two salaries (for independent stores),
plus the usual business costs for book keeping, licensing, insurance.
The distributor sells either to libraries, which usually want a
discount, or to bookstores at a 40% discount. In the latter case the
distributor makes $2-$3.50, but his expenses are mammoth--warehouses,
book keeping, large staff, etc. Only the largest distributors and
those, like SPD (the only one, I think) that receive outside funding,
have been able to survive.
Bottom line, it's pennies on each book. Even the big web sellers,
like Amazon, can only survive on large sales volume.
The situation outside the US is often better. Every country in Latin
America, for instance, supports book production and sale at every
stage of the process. The result: lots of books, though the
distribution often sucks.
My goal as a businessman, like that of most small press publishers,
is to get back what it costs me (in money, not in time), or close to
it, so that I can keep publishing books.
Which is to say, given the economics, books are very cheap at the price.
Mark
At 11:01 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote:
>Mark wrote:
>
> > Here's a hint, with a hint of sadness. Readings in non-poetry
> > environments tend to sell more books. A reading for a book club at a
> > senior center, for instance, will sell more books than a reading in a
> > series attended mostly by poets. Poets as a rule resist buying books,
> > maybe because they're a bit overwhelmed by the quantity, but also I
> > suspect because they expect to be given books.
>
>Two other factors: one, there are (paradoxically) a lot of poetry books to
>choose from, and two (concomitantly) poets are frequently among the least
>wealthy of arts enthusiasts.
>
>P
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