I've been pondering the economic issues of the small press poetry world lately, and I'm trying to figure out a different means of distribution.
Take, for example, a book of poetry that costs a modest $14. Once the press creates it, then it has to advertise it, ship it, and in general promote it; however, as soon as it is sent to a bookstore or a distributor, they take 40-60% right off the top. Take Amazon, 55%. $14-7.7 (50%)=$6.3. That $6.3 has to pay for everything else. Let's break that down. $6.3-2.50 (printing costs--I'm being moderate)=$3.80. $3.80-2.13 (shipping costs)=$1.67. Ok, so now we have $1.67 per book to pay for promotion (events), advertising, overhead (storage/creation/press salaries), governmental fees, and author royalties. If we somehow manage to sell through 500 copies (that's not bad for small poetry books), we theoretically make $835, but even that does not count things like book returns (most of which cannot be sold again for full price), and it does not take into account that it might take two to three years, maybe more, to sell the books. That does not leave much money for a small press to finance new books.
If you are a poet trying to make money, forget it. You'd be extremely lucky to make $100 off of such an arrangement. If you write 200 books a year, you could theoretically make $20,000 on them, but I doubt that's possible.
As for a press, if we switch to POD, the printing price goes up significantly while the printing quality goes down, and even then, it is a pain to get places like Amazon to sell the books.
What's to be done?
Take, for example, a book of poetry that costs a modest $14. Once the press creates it, then it has to advertise it, ship it, and in general promote it; however, as soon as it is sent to a bookstore or a distributor, they take 40-60% right off the top. Take Amazon, 55%. $14-7.7 (50%)=$6.3. That $6.3 has to pay for everything else. Let's break that down. $6.3-2.50 (printing costs--I'm being moderate)=$3.80. $3.80-2.13 (shipping costs)=$1.67. Ok, so now we have $1.67 per book to pay for promotion (events), advertising, overhead (storage/creation/press salaries), governmental fees, and author royalties. If we somehow manage to sell through 500 copies (that's not bad for small poetry books), we theoretically make $835, but even that does not count things like book returns (most of which cannot be sold again for full price), and it does not take into account that it might take two to three years, maybe more, to sell the books. That does not leave much money for a small press to finance new books.
If you are a poet trying to make money, forget it. You'd be extremely lucky to make $100 off of such an arrangement. If you write 200 books a year, you could theoretically make $20,000 on them, but I doubt that's possible.
As for a press, if we switch to POD, the printing price goes up significantly while the printing quality goes down, and even then, it is a pain to get places like Amazon to sell the books.
What's to be done?
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