

Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book  - chris123
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/business/media/01ebooks.html

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chris123
Some interesting stuff and stats in there. For example:

Now let’s look at an e-book. Under the agreements with Apple, the publishers
will set the consumer price and the retailer will act as an agent, earning a
30 percent commission on each sale. So on a $12.99 e-book, the publisher takes
in $9.09. Out of that gross revenue, the publisher pays about 50 cents to
convert the text to a digital file, typeset it in digital form and copy-edit
it. Marketing is about 78 cents.

The author’s royalty — a subject of fierce debate between literary agents and
publishing executives — is calculated among some of the large trade publishers
as 25 percent of the gross revenue, while others are calculating it off the
consumer price. So on a $12.99 e-book, the royalty could be anywhere from
$2.27 to $3.25.

All that leaves the publisher with something ranging from $4.56 to $5.54,
before paying overhead costs or writing off unearned advances.

At a glance, it appears the e-book is more profitable.

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prbuckley
Dear HN Readers, Do you think there is an opportunity for a new style of
publishing house that focuses on just producing and marketing ebooks?

