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<blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 5019718" data-attributes="member: 1645">I see. You understand the publishing industry much better than the people making a living at it.Let me try again.Publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is relatively cheap).&nbsp; Thus, a publisher wants to think long and hard before deciding to publish a particular book at all, but once they've made that decision they're happy to print far more copies than they are sure to sell.&nbsp; If a book sells for five times its printing cost, they'd theoretically be willing to print books with just a one-in-five chance of selling.Consignment makes stores willing to carry such long-shots rather than just carrying the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book.&nbsp; If the retailer has to pay a substantial amount up front, then the retailer does not want to take any chances, and the retailer will stick to relatively sure things.Read up on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsvendor" target="_blank">news boy model</a> for a more formal analysis.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="mmadsen, post: 5019718, member: 1645"] I see. You understand the publishing industry much better than the people making a living at it. Let me try again. Publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is relatively cheap). Thus, a publisher wants to think long and hard before deciding to publish a particular book at all, but once they've made that decision they're happy to print far more copies than they are [i]sure[/i] to sell. If a book sells for five times its printing cost, they'd theoretically be willing to print books with just a one-in-five chance of selling. Consignment makes stores willing to carry such long-shots rather than just carrying the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book. If the retailer has to pay a substantial amount up front, then the retailer does not want to take any chances, and the retailer will stick to relatively sure things. Read up on the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsvendor]news boy model[/url] for a more formal analysis. [/QUOTE]

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