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<blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 7776741" data-attributes="member: 725"><p>Let's say a publisher sells a book at 40-45% of MSRP to a distributor, the distributor sells it at 55-60% MSRP to retailers, 10% of MSRP goes to printing, that leaves 30-35% of MSRP to pay everyone else (writers, editors, artists, project managers, layout, etc.) and hopefully make a profit.</p><p></p><p>But with pdf there is no printing cost, but there is a sales cost of ~30% of sale price, so if you sell a pdf at 50% MSRP, your left with 35% of MSRP. Not a whole lot more then through physical distribution...</p><p></p><p>And while someone must push a publish pdf button, if your layout artist did his/her job, it's as simpel as choosing an export profile and push pdf. Bookmarks will be generated automatically, you can even publish to epub. Now, if your doing weird digital stuff like with the Apple enhanced ebooks for GW books for example, that indeed is a lot of extra work...</p><p></p><p>Also keep in mind that while digital computer game sales have skyrocketed and are in some cases exceeding physical sales, most serious publishers can't generate those kind of digital sales. Certain specialist publishers only do digital sales, but again, in the short run those don't near the minimums for physical sales. So everyone still needs to be paid and if they don't expect enough sales, price needs to go up. But that often means less sales, etc. So there is a certain balancing act with prices, products and publishers going on. In many cases it's a niche in a niche in a niche in a... Thus tiny sales.</p><p></p><p>But the biggest advantage for digital sales that aren't connected to a 3rd party license (which expires) is that it's always in stock and will generate sales for ever (although it might end up as very little revenue eventually). WotC did some brisk business when they initially released they old 2nd edtion books for a steal in digital format, ebay prices for those same items dropped significantly...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cergorach, post: 7776741, member: 725"] Let's say a publisher sells a book at 40-45% of MSRP to a distributor, the distributor sells it at 55-60% MSRP to retailers, 10% of MSRP goes to printing, that leaves 30-35% of MSRP to pay everyone else (writers, editors, artists, project managers, layout, etc.) and hopefully make a profit. But with pdf there is no printing cost, but there is a sales cost of ~30% of sale price, so if you sell a pdf at 50% MSRP, your left with 35% of MSRP. Not a whole lot more then through physical distribution... And while someone must push a publish pdf button, if your layout artist did his/her job, it's as simpel as choosing an export profile and push pdf. Bookmarks will be generated automatically, you can even publish to epub. Now, if your doing weird digital stuff like with the Apple enhanced ebooks for GW books for example, that indeed is a lot of extra work... Also keep in mind that while digital computer game sales have skyrocketed and are in some cases exceeding physical sales, most serious publishers can't generate those kind of digital sales. Certain specialist publishers only do digital sales, but again, in the short run those don't near the minimums for physical sales. So everyone still needs to be paid and if they don't expect enough sales, price needs to go up. But that often means less sales, etc. So there is a certain balancing act with prices, products and publishers going on. In many cases it's a niche in a niche in a niche in a... Thus tiny sales. But the biggest advantage for digital sales that aren't connected to a 3rd party license (which expires) is that it's always in stock and will generate sales for ever (although it might end up as very little revenue eventually). WotC did some brisk business when they initially released they old 2nd edtion books for a steal in digital format, ebay prices for those same items dropped significantly... [/QUOTE]
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