An interesting poster--but the figure for paperback and hardcover book sales is off so far as to be ludicrous. AAP, which notoriously understates booksales (by including only the biggest publishers), shows about $23.7 billion for total print book sales, or about $9 billion if you exclude educational and professional markets. Basically, the left number is off by two orders of magnitude.
just out of curiosity, does an ebook have to be sponsored, submitted, or represented by a publisher or can aspiring writers publish their own. the reason i ask is because my wife, her bff and they wanted me in on the loop--have been dickering for years with the idea of helping starving, student or overlooked/undiscovered writers self publish by starting a business dedicated to doing that. I have 3 decades of bindery experience and if someone had a modest investment--like an income tax refund--they could bring the manuscript in to us, where we would sign an agreement with the client that if the book was a success, and optioned by a commercial publisher we understand the client wanting to go where the money is, they agree to grant us a discovery percentage of 1-5% of future royalties for that title. the idea is that they market and self promote for the desired exposure and sales (100% of which they keep).
For the Kindle, you can self publish on the website and set the price you sell your book for. There is currently a lot of self-published ocntent, and some have nice success.
Al: I've blown up the poster as far as I can, and see nothing saying "one book title" for either of the $ figures. There's a single book with $249 million in sales in hardcopy--or more than $24 million in eform? Really?
What about the cost in trees that are required to make the paper for 40 to 50 books. Does the carbon footprint take that into affect? I don't know how many trees it takes to make the amount of paper 40 or 50 books contain but not cutting down those trees will reduce the impact of the carbon footprint of the ebook reader production.
I think the $.50 number is misleading. Although it's true, you don't have the cost of paper, ink, and binding when producing an ebook, you still have other costs. The book needs to be edited, and typeset, plus you have administrative costs to take into account -- somebody needs to handle the contracts and royalties payments, etc. When all is said and done, the production cost ends up being much higher. Just food for thought.
Editorial Assistant, editing, typesetting, administration and all is not cheap, but nobody quantifies it either. If the industry really wanted people to not be resentful of their pricing structures, they'd have to be open and transparent. Fat chance of that, huh?
Also, there are far more e-book readers than just the Kindle as well as online retailers for each. It seems the numbers for e-books side were just from the Kindle.
An interesting poster--but the figure for paperback and hardcover book sales is off so far as to be ludicrous. AAP, which notoriously understates booksales (by including only the biggest publishers), shows about $23.7 billion for total print book sales, or about $9 billion if you exclude educational and professional markets. Basically, the left number is off by two orders of magnitude.
ReplyDeleteTake a closer look Waltc. This is showing the sales of one book title.
ReplyDeletejust out of curiosity, does an ebook have to be sponsored, submitted, or represented by a publisher or can aspiring writers publish their own. the reason i ask is because my wife, her bff and they wanted me in on the loop--have been dickering for years with the idea of helping starving, student or overlooked/undiscovered writers self publish by starting a business dedicated to doing that. I have 3 decades of bindery experience and if someone had a modest investment--like an income tax refund--they could bring the manuscript in to us, where we would sign an agreement with the client that if the book was a success, and optioned by a commercial publisher we understand the client wanting to go where the money is, they agree to grant us a discovery percentage of 1-5% of future royalties for that title. the idea is that they market and self promote for the desired exposure and sales (100% of which they keep).
ReplyDelete@fkellysales
ReplyDeleteFor the Kindle, you can self publish on the website and set the price you sell your book for. There is currently a lot of self-published ocntent, and some have nice success.
Al: I've blown up the poster as far as I can, and see nothing saying "one book title" for either of the $ figures. There's a single book with $249 million in sales in hardcopy--or more than $24 million in eform? Really?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the cost in trees that are required to make the paper for 40 to 50 books. Does the carbon footprint take that into affect? I don't know how many trees it takes to make the amount of paper 40 or 50 books contain but not cutting down those trees will reduce the impact of the carbon footprint of the ebook reader production.
ReplyDeleteI think the $.50 number is misleading. Although it's true, you don't have the cost of paper, ink, and binding when producing an ebook, you still have other costs. The book needs to be edited, and typeset, plus you have administrative costs to take into account -- somebody needs to handle the contracts and royalties payments, etc. When all is said and done, the production cost ends up being much higher. Just food for thought.
ReplyDeletePaper books vs e books : how many forests might be saved? How much of the fresh air would be brought to the future?
ReplyDeleteEditorial Assistant, editing, typesetting, administration and all is not cheap, but nobody quantifies it either. If the industry really wanted people to not be resentful of their pricing structures, they'd have to be open and transparent. Fat chance of that, huh?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is they do not take into account books read on other computers, not only on e-books, and freely downloaded, not sold, book files.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are far more e-book readers than just the Kindle as well as online retailers for each. It seems the numbers for e-books side were just from the Kindle.
ReplyDeleteBoth have their own advantages. But in my point of view, with ebooks, finding a desirable content is easier.
ReplyDelete