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

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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

acquiring books that won't be promoted

[(Anonymous)]

I am a MM PB author very similar to Ms. Sun--a nobody, with no "platform," no blurbs, no fancy cover and no co-op dollars. Not surprisingly, my sales results were quite similar to Ms. Sun's. My question: why do publishers acquire books that they have no intention of promoting? It seems like a guaranteed recipe for failure, and then they blame the poor author! When Nabisco launches a new cookie, they promote the hell out of it. They don't just ship it to grocery stores and stand by passively while the cookies grow stale on the shelf. Why is publsihing different?