Aren't they just charging the price that they can get away with? The publishing house and authors get the part of the money that would normally go to the printers, loggers, shippers, etc.
But the key point is that they're not paid by the publisher for the publication, they're paid to produce the publication by others. The publisher is just gets it for (basically) free and then profits off the fees.
Do you know how you and the publisher are compensated in this situation? I'm assuming there is some sort of royalty stream coming back to you? (I'm not asking for details, just generalities).
I'm not "giving up 85% of my money in perpetuity".
Yes, authors get paid a royalty of 6%-25% of the cover price. However, the biggest cut of the cover price goes to the distribution/retail chain. And when I say "biggest" I mean "50-70%".
In general, the publisher spends about the same amount as the author royalties on production and manufacturing overheads. And reaps the same again as their profit share.
Between us my publishers and I typically end up getting 20-30% of the price of each book sold, with another 10% going on production costs. Amazon then take 50-70%. They may choose to pass half their share on to the consumers, but they're still trousering more profit than my publisher and I get, combined.
How much of those 50$ get taken by the publishers, managers, etc.? I'd much rather pay for stuff if i knew it actually went to the person who wrote it.
Here's a typical breakdown, from 2010: "Out of that gross revenue, the publisher pays about $3.25 to print, store and ship the book, including unsold copies returned to the publisher by booksellers."
It's not exactly 98% of the profits; but, it still seems egregious.
From what I've noticed, royalties are generally about 10% of gross against advances (if any), or $1 on a $10 soft-cover. The publisher spends money on the acquisition, editing, printing, and distribution; in brick-and-morter land, this isn't cheap. Remember that the store needs to make a couple of bucks, too.
Additionally, major retailers include a buyback clause—if the book doesn't sell, the retailer can sell up to something like 15% of the initial purchase order back to the publisher. The publisher often forwards your share of that burden into your royalty payment schedule.
Though, ultimately, while authors might get screwed financially in a lot of ways, publishing does, as a consumer, keep a lot of crap out of your purchasing decisions. Publishers (on the whole) do provide a lot of value to you: are you going to buy Gruen's AWESOME guide to Ruby or The Ruby Programming Language from O'Reilly Publishing with its venerable woodcut cover treatment?
If you're trying to get your work out there (which is why people write in the first place) you're probably willing to take the traditional publishing deal.
The author probably got paid an amount for writing the book and then hands all rights over to the publisher. The publisher then prints it forever and takes the income from that. This is a guess based on working with other publishers though. Individual companies may differ.
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