Book People Archive

Re: once again, o'reilly has a clue, and guts too


On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 Bowerbird@[redacted] wrote:

> once again, o'reilly has a clue, and guts too:
>
>>    http://journals.aol.com/bowerbird/bowerbirdseyeview
>
> thank heaven for the pioneers...
>
> -bowerbird
>
> p.s.   a point relevant to a longstanding point of contention here:
>
>>    print publishing is very much a "tipping point" business.
>>    While customers naively assume that printing is
>>    a large part of the retail cost of a book,
>>    for a successful, high volume computer book,
>>    it typically represents less than 10% of the list price.
>>    Distribution costs (including retailer discount,
>>    warehousing, and physical distribution), by contrast,
>>    represent more than 60% of the list price!
>
> yes, the entire situation gets considerably more thorny, of course,
> which to its credit this piece does a rather good job of explicating.
> still, i could help but notice that word "naively".   telling, isn't it?


Of course, if the book were not "printed" that 10% cost would be
multiplied several times over, as it would not have costs of
"warehouseing, and physical distribution."

As for the "retailer discount"?

When was a "discount" a "cost"?

Costs are balanced against revenues, but that does not make
them both the same thing.

Costs are what is required to create and deliver a product.

If it's an eBook, there aren't much in the way of "printing,
warehousing, and physical distribution" costs."

Selling at a discount is NOT a "cost."

And if your customers are setting the discount, something
is rotten in the state of Denmark.


Michael


PS
I like O'Reilly quite a bit, and will research this a bit more.