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

Re: Mass Market Returns

[(Anonymous)]

I worked for a big Canadian book chain, and the same deal at our store - absolutely no recycling of stripped mass markets, or stripcover magazines. Dumpsters full of *recyclable* garbage headed to the landfill every week. And as employees we weren't allowed to take home any of this "garbage" - as publishers require that stripcovers are destroyed.

Another ridiculous thing is how large quantities of mass market are ordered into a store, hundreds more than could possibly sell.. just so displays, tables and shelves look full. Screw you, Earth - I've got to complete this planogram!

It's a dirty secret, customers don't know about it.. and would probably be shocked if they knew how much waste a bookstore can generate.