AdmiralHuang
Spaceman
Thanks!
This answer was given to a request to reprint even a few copies of =End Run= which is out of print
The problem is, we can sell maybe a thousand a year while we need to print 15,000 to justify printing at all because a large part of the printing cost is "set-up." Thus if set-up is the same for printing a thousand at, say $4500, while actual printing costs are fifty cents per unit, the actual cost per unit in the first case is a five thousand dollars for a thousand units, or a prohibitive $5 per unit, whereas in the second case the cost is twelve thousand dollars for 15,000 units, or eighty cents per unit.
If I sell books for six bucks that cost me five bucks just to manufacture I'll go broke pretty fast. I get maybe two bucks per book to pay for everything except distribution — the bookstore's profit, authors royalty, manufacturing, cover art, rent and electricity.... everything including baby's new shoes.
Hope this helps.
Bandit LOAF said:End Run is online at www.blacklance.org/jetlag
Bob McDob said:Is ER available on Baen's open-source library thing? It seems like it'd be a natural.