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

Re: Strange

[alg.livejournal.com]

Totally different market for the trade paperbacks, then?

Not entirely. But what you are describing is different -- technical books are non-fiction, not novels.

Re: Strange

[ryanlrussell.livejournal.com]

See, I would tend to think that novels would sell better, bigger market.

And a few of my books might qualify as novels, but they are still sold to the Computers buyers at the bookstores. "Hacker fiction" might decribe them.

Re: Strange

[(Anonymous)]

Totally different market for the trade paperbacks, then?

Not entirely. But what you are describing is different -- technical books are non-fiction, not novels.

How different is the PnL for a trade paperback novel? Not being mass-market, are their print runs automatically smaller?