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

Something that would be helpful

[deep-bluze.livejournal.com]

You emphasize several things that help a book, or hurt it. Among these things were blurbs from known authors, reviews, etc. What would be helpful to some of us would be somewhat of a breakdown of what sort of impact these things have, and a ranking of importance?

For instance, your Crichton is an Idiot author had one pity blurb, and their one good review was in RT (which I know you pretty much only get if you have a paid ad). The other review, in Booklist, was awful.

In your figuring of the P&L how much weight do blurbs carry? Unfortunately, until you've already been granted money to print the galleys, you won't get the reviews, but once you HAVE the good reviews, on an average, how much do they change the outcome?

I ask this as an author with solis A+ reviews from Publisher's Weekly, but on HC books out from smaller publishers. Blurbs good in both cases (and more available from best-selling authors) but there has been no interest thus far from larger publishers for either taking these books to mass market, or in subsequent books (also with the same good blurbs).

That leads to another question. Being with the smaller / medium level publisher, who does very very low print runs, does the fact that the print run is very low, and sells through count for anything, or is it only taken into account that a low number were sold?

I'm looking for a formula, I guess, to assign importance to different factors, as opposed to other factors, with an eye toward plugging all of the useful information you provided into a workable "plan".

DNW

Re: Something that would be helpful

[deep-bluze.livejournal.com]

(Sigh) SOLID A+ reviews, not Solis (not in typing, you see...the A+ is in writing)

Re: Something that would be helpful

[alg.livejournal.com]

Okay, these are really good questions that, unfortunately, do not have static answers.

I'm looking for a formula, I guess, to assign importance to different factors, as opposed to other factors, with an eye toward plugging all of the useful information you provided into a workable "plan".

That sentence worries me. You cannot create a workable plan -- not really. The human factor is far too large and important a part. You need good luck, good timing, and a good book -- two out of three ain't bad, but all three make a book a success.

(And for "good book" read: commercial. No matter how beautiful your prose is, you can't be a bestseller if people don't want to read about your chosen subject(s).)

Re: Something that would be helpful

[deep-bluze.livejournal.com]

Okay....but what about the blurb question? In your scenario about the author of Crichton is an Idiot, you continually mention that said book has no blurbs as if this is meaningful...but how meaningful is it in the process? We are in a theoretical deal in your post where the book has already been bought by your theoretical editor, so in figuring the P&L what kind of weight to the blurbs carry?

D