Why Publishing Costs So Much–Part I

By Yvonne DiVita - Feb 28 , 2008

[Offered with thanks to Dave Young, who has over 50 years' experience in publishing.
A respected colleague of mine, who has been in the book business a bit longer than I, and who has seen times change dramatically over the years, wrote an article for our publishing blog two years ago, and the content is still relevant, so I thought I’d share it here.]

Credit for much of the content of this article goes to Dave Young, an editor living here in Rochester, NY. If you would like to connect with him, after reading this series of three parts on publishing costs, please visit the RPCN website and click on his name. His contact information is there. I have revised areas that needed updating. But, Dave has been in the field of printing and editing far longer than I, so I did use a good bit of his article, with his explicit permission.

As anyone reading this article knows, writing and publishing a book is more than just a “task”–it’s often a labor of love. When an author decides to put that idea, or that manuscript, to the test – i.e., deciding to publish it, she has a number of ways to do so. She can approach a traditional publisher, use a vanity press, work with a print-on-demand publisher, or self-publish.

Traditionally, the big houses want to buy the manuscript outright. Their model is to pay an advance against royalties, and award the author royalties after they have recovered the amount of the advance, in sales. Advances are generally between $5-10 grand. Royalties are often set at 5-10% of retail. This is a time-honored way to publish, but times change. Maybe the old way isn’t your way. Maybe it is. Let’s see what goes into this thing we call publishing.

Fixed Costs of Publishing

All published books involve fixed costs such as editing, proofreading and cover design. Other costs vary, either by business model, or by quantity of books printed. Printing, binding, packaging, and distribution are examples. Different publishing models have different ways of covering these costs. Traditional publishers cover them by offering smaller advances and royalties, until they determine how well a book is going to sell. If a book is not a good selling book, they recoup their money and move on. If it does sell well, they may do a second printing and everyone earns more money. A second book by that author might then command a higher advance and royalty.

Administrative costs figure into the overall scheme and include reading manuscripts and returning those not suited to the publisher’s needs (note that when you submit a manuscript, you must include return postage or the publisher will not return it). When a good manuscript is identified by the first reader, it is passed to an editor who must read it and convince senior editors and the publisher, who control the flow of cash, to allot the up-front money needed to publish the book. The editors, and the publishers, need offices and salaries. And, often, assistants.

Assuming a go-ahead, the editor will interact with the author while preparing the book for publication. All of this takes time and must be done in a facility that requires light, heat, rent, phones, etc. All of which costs money.

The editor must obtain an ISBN number (often bought in blocks of 250 or more) and Copyright forms, complete them, and file them with the proper agencies. Eventually, the publishing company will send copies of the finished work to the Library of Congress.
Editing is more than checking spelling and grammar. First off there’s substantive editing. This is what the author-editor relationship usually centers upon. Is the manuscript’s content organized appropriately? Does each section follow logically from the previous section? Is the content correct historically, mathematically, chronologically, and technically? Do the characters seem real and behave in believable ways? Will the reader be able to follow the sequence of events, including flashbacks? If a business book, are all the facts substantiated? Are the citations current?

Then there’s copy editing. A copy editor reads the manuscript as the reader’s advocate, checking format, style, consistency of layout, consistency of definitions, consistency of patterns, illustrations, emphasis, page design, typography, visual impact, clarity, conciseness, order of presentation, indexing, accuracy, transliteration, ease of translation to other languages, time orientation, completeness, usefulness, ethicality, discrimination, contractual appropriateness, physical appropriateness, copyrights, trademarks, libel, jargon, word usage, hyphenation, punctuation, spelling, grammar, fads, and more. An editor may also mark up the electronic file using a generalized publishing markup language so that the manuscript may be easily reformatted for hardbound or paperback publishing.
To be sure all the above happens on a reasonable schedule, while other books are also in process, a job file must be established to track progress and location of the elements (e.g., manuscript, data file, printing plates, approvals, etc.) during and subsequent to manufacture. Also, it’s necessary to establish procedures and paperwork to see that everyone gets paid for their contributions and that money owed the publisher as a result of book sales is collected. All of this costs money.

Design Work: Cover and Page Layout

While the editor is at work, several things must be done, and each has associated costs. The book’s cover must be designed. This involves preparing artwork, selecting appropriate typefaces, and layout of the cover elements all of which affect eye-appeal and sales. Words must be written and illustrations prepared for the book jacket and inside-jacket flaps.

The text between the covers must also be designed. Have you ever picked up a book at a book store, flipped through the pages, and put it down because it didn’t look inviting? Elements of text design involve choice of type face and size, page layout, and treatment of chapter headers. Some of these decisions affect more than eye appeal and ease of reading; type style and leading affect the number of pages in the book, and that affects the printing costs.

Graphics must be designed. Maps, charts, graphs, and photographs must be designed and rendered suitable for printing. Type styles and other artistic considerations, such as the relationship to the adjacent text, and stylistic consistency, must be factored in. Image placement can be a time-consuming task, and if not done properly, the end result can create confusion in the reader’s mind. When the words do not match the picture, when the picture is on page twelve and the descriptive text is on page four, someone, somewhere dropped the ball.

Let’s not forget paper. Its color, weight, bulk and finish are important not only to the look and feel of the text, line drawings, and photos that will be printed, but will also affect the physical thickness and weight of the finished book and thus its space in the warehouse and its cost of packing and shipping to stores.

The compositor, who composes the pages, may need to manually keyboard text in if an electronic file has not been provided (it’s less likely today that an electronic file is not provided, but we do want to cover all possibilities). Then, following the text design, the compositor sets the type so that the text is ready for proofing.

At this point, copies of the text are printed. One copy may be sent to the author for approval that the text has been properly rendered. These galley proofs show the text in the proper typeface and column width, but probably will not be in finished book form.

All the above steps are done by professionals in their fields; editors, designers, compositors, and printers who spend years learning their trades. Many are college graduates in their specialties. They don’t work cheap.

When your manuscript is accepted for publication by one of the big five (Bertlesman (Random House), Time Warner, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Disney, or Viacom/CBS) ,they pay these costs. When you choose to self-publish, you pay the costs. If you use an author services company, you pay them. Many author services companies today include POD printing, which is part of the variable costs which we’ll talk about next week.

Stay tuned.