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June 6, 2007
"It's the backlist, stupid," Random House "Profit Calculator"
Funny short piece in New York mag, via Galleycat.
Money quote --
"Many books are unprofitable,” says CEO Peter Olson. Fifteen to twenty best sellers at a time and a huge volume of steadily selling older titles support Random House, a unit of German media giant Bertelsmann. Every week, the country’s biggest trade publisher releases 67 new books, but it’s the the 33,000-book backlist (Ian McEwan’s Atonement, for example) that supplies 80 percent of its profit.
Below that there's some funny math --
Most authors do not see a 15% list royalty on paperback sales, that figure is decidedly fishy.
Posted by matt at June 6, 2007 9:35 AM