P&Ls and how books make (or don't) money

[alg]

Profit & Loss/Profitability & Liability: How Books Make (or Don't Make!) Money

A basic outline of what happens when an editor buys a book and wants to publish it. This is very much a basic look at publishing and publishing finance, with some explanation of terms commonly used by the marketing and sales departments.

Comments

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

Wow. What a read. Thanks. Extremely fascinating and informative.
I knew a little of this already (2 years in a bookstore teaches you some strange stuff) but a lot is new to me.

It would be really fascinating to see the P&L treatment for anthologies, since they're a different kettle of fish from the average paperback.

Please don't stop enlightening us now.

[alg.livejournal.com]

Anthologies are done the same -- it's just that the person compiling/editing the antho is told how much money they have to work with, and they have to figure out how much they can pay each person. Or it could be done completely differently -- ask around.