Via the BFS I found this angry tale of a writer apparently left high and dry by a small press publisher who took on a collection and then allegedly couldn’t be bothered to actually sell it. I know nothing of the actual circumstances, and I imagine that Sean Wright will have his side to the story as well, but from a publishing economics standpoint the following seems clear.
Limited edition print runs should be for beautifully produced books such as the high-end products produced by Subterranean, PS Publishing and Payseur & Schmidt. Print-on-demand should be for books that you hope to sell in larger numbers, and which need never go out of print because if someone wants to buy one you can just print another.
I’m sure it is not quite that simple. Even PoD will have some sort of minimum economic print run. But that should be pretty small and in an ideal world it will be 1.
Based on my experience with Lulu, POD economic print-run is on the order of fifty to 100, if you don’t price yourself out of the market. Yes, it’s still a small number compared to other forms of publishing. This is just FYI.
I wonder if it isn’t simply that the Publisher ran out of money? (Disclosure: I am also a publisher (but not genre).)
Myself, I’d be crapped out if my limited-edition hardcover book was lumbecked. I get peeved mightily by normal HCs being glued, let alone “premium” books.
The economics of Digital Print is complex, and wider than just POD (which myself I’d define as single-unit production). Strictly speaking, I really wouldn’t be expecting to POD a book and both make a profit on it, and sell it at a competitive price. But there are more considerations than those in the pricing, as well.
As the previous correspondent says, Digital Print becomes competitive around 50-100 copies, and remains so up to about 750 copies, when Offset starts to gain ground. But again, it’s complex, and other factors can change that.
I can understand why a Publisher might choose to go with Digital Print for a Limited Edition. I can even understand why they might POD a title. Never, never, never underestimate the role of economics in small press publishing. There is no fat. There is NO fat.
Fifty to 100 sounds reasonable to me, too — in terms of production costs, anyhow, not counting whatever you’ve paid the author(s). I think All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (for which the authors were paid SFWA’s derisory ‘pro’ rates, about $4000 altogether) broke even somewhere around 500 copies.
The cost to first book from Lulu.com is about $100. A copy of your own 400-page Lulu book costs you about $13. Say the cover price is $20, your net ranges from $7 (if you sell it out of your backpack) down to about $0.15 (if you sell it through Amazon or through an order from a traditional bookstore).
From talking to Deb Layne, I get the impression the costs per copy are somewhat lower and the margins somewhat higher if you go straight to Lightning Source, though the initial setup may cost more.
Both services get you an ISBN and make your book at least in principle available to bookstores through ordinary industry channels. Your additional expenditure for a copy sold via Amazon or bookstore order should be zero.
It sounds to me as though Mr. Wright skipped that last step and just paid to have some books manufactured. I imagine that lowers his costs a bit, but a publisher with no distribution doesn’t “publish” in any ordinary, contemporary sense of the word.
David:
Thank you, that all sounds very sensible.