[Info-vax] OT: About Digital and divisions

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply <helbig at astro.multiclothesvax.de> wrote:

(snip on costs of selling, Sony, and Apple)

> There are various sorts of contract, of course, and the rich and famous 
> can demand more, but with a traditional (paper) book, the standard was 
> that the author got about 10% of the cover price.  One shouldn't think 
> that if the author gets x% (from which, of course, he has to pay his own 
> costs, but they are not very high in most cases), then someone else gets 
> (100-x)% in PROFITS.  There are various costs.  These might be somewhat 
> less for purely electronic publishing.

As I understand it, it is usual in retail for the retailer to keep
about half of the cover (suggested retail) price.  That gets less
and less true for higher priced items, though.

One of the costs for paper book printing is all the unsold copies
that actually were printed.   Electronic publishing avoids that.

-- glen