OFFSET PRINTING SERVICES: AFFORDABLE PRINTING SERVICES

Affordable printing services is what many young writers will be looking at once they've exhausted the traditional publishing routes.

Many poets start quite the wrong way round by submitting their life's work to a prestigious publishing house, forgetting that publishers will look favourably on poetry only if the author has accreditation in workshops, commissions and publications in serious poetry outlets.

Would-be novelists are also apt to be surprised that their labour of love is not ecstatically received.

To see why, writers need to understand the literary scene and the economics of publishing. Only 1% of manuscripts find a publisher, and only some 250 copies are sold, on average, of each ISBN number.

Affordable Printing Services: Facts

Even professional poets earn far more from reviewing, adjudicating competitions, giving talks, running workshops, and/or appearing on radio than from royalties on their publications.

But if poetry doesn't pay, nor very handsomely do other forms of literature. In Britain, around 100,000 new books are published every year, of which 7,000 are novels. Of these only some 20% have any claim to literary respectability. Returns are generally poor, and often in inverse proportion to the time and effort expended.

Of course there are big-earners, multimillionaires even, but in 1988 only some 300 full-time novelists made in excess of £8,000 p.a., with another 300 supplementing income from journalism, and another 900 supplementing income from some other literary activity. Figures from other countries are equally depressing (e.g. 1250, 750 and 1750 respectively for the States), and will not have improved recently. In 2005, the UK Society of Authors found that half their members earned less than the minimum wage.

With royalties around 10% at best, writers must learn to mechanically turn out a commercial product or starve. Seventy-five percent of serious writers in the States earn no money at all from their work, ever.

Much more dismal are the proceeds from poetry publishing. A few specialist publishers (e.g. Anvil, Carcanet, Bloodaxe) do turn in respectable figures, but in general poetry is not handled at all (the great majority, e.g. Corgi, HarperCollins, Hodder and Stoughton), is subsidized by sales elsewhere (e.g. Faber and Faber, Peter Owen, OUP) or supported by regional grants (e.g. Peterloo).

On the whole, writers do not have outgoing personalities, and special efforts are needed to market them, Betjeman being a notable exception. Many poets, dodging between welfare and dead-end jobs, cultivate a hand-me-down appearance that establishes street cred but does nothing to inspire confidence in the larger world. Moreover, as poetry is the most severely literary of the arts, it does not translate readily to films, TV programmes or mini-series, so that even this last hope of the struggling writer is closed to poets.

Novels are better placed, but only the smallest fraction transfer to the screen.

Affordable Printing Services: Example

Two matters concern publishers: the reputation of their publishing house, and whether they can at least cover expenses, i.e. affordable printing costs.

Suppose you approach a publisher with your collection of poems and stories based on your home town and its characters. Of course you'll include a media kit and emphasize that you're well known on the local poetry-reading, radio and book-signing circuit, more than capable of making the publication sell. Here's what the publisher does:

1. Checks the credentials: that you are indeed who you say you are, your previous books exist and have been successful. A few telephone calls will establish these.

2. Estimates likely sales figures. He learns that your home town has a population of 50,000, and its local newspaper enjoys a circulation of 15,000 (calls to friends, local library, Bowkers). Experience has told him that only a few percent of newspaper readers will buy poetry, say 500. Allowing 10% loss in spoilage, review copies, etc. he has 450 copies to sell. Figures in US$:

publishing costs @ $3.50/copy
 
($1750)
ancillaries (distribution, warehousing, etc.)
 
($350)
gross sales @ $6.95/copy
$3127
 
bookstore commissions @ 40%
 
($1112)
marketing expenses
 
($500)
totals
$3127
($3712)
net profit
 
($585)

Hardly enticing. A loss, even though no royalty is paid, and he hasn't costed for his own time. Supposing every copy is sold, eventually.

3. But perhaps he's a failed poet himself, or feels that your prestige will enhance the firm's standing in the community, or that price can be increased to $8.95. He asks for the MS, reading it carefully and getting opinions from the local writers circle and a retired English professor. Everyone likes the work. The publisher therefore invites you in for a meeting and is sufficiently impressed by your confidence to offer a co-publishing contract. A print run of 500 copies, no royalties, and you put up $1000 of the publishing costs. Yes, you. He has $2100 at risk; you can bear the other $1000.

Serious poetry is never a bestseller, but novels can be. In this second example you have managed to interest a large publishing house in your manuscript. Everything looks promising. You're personable and articulate, ideal for a TV chat show or late-night arts program. You have a good thirty years of writing in you. What you produce now is phenomenally good. The publishing house does its sums. These are 'back of the envelope' figures, all in units of 1000. The book retails for $12.95, royalties are 8%, and bookstore commissions average 40%:

no. sold
receipts
costs
profit
printing & distribution
royalties
bookstore commissions
management & publicity
1
13
6
1
5
3
(2)
2
26
8
2
10
3
3
10
129
21
10
52
5
41
100
1,295
135
104
518
12
526
1,000
12,950
1,250
1,036
5,180
25
5,459

Everything depends on the book proving a bestseller. This is how the publishing house calculates the odds: figures again in thousands:

no. sold
% odds
profit
what you're worth to them (odds x profit)
1
30
(2)
-0.6
2
50
3
1.5
10
17
41
7.0
100
2.9
526
15.25
1,000
0.1
5,459
5.46
total
100
 
28.88

The figures are notional, but suggest that the publishing house has a 98% chance of making less than $7,500. That's barely worth the effort, but they're banking on the future, your second or tenth novel.

You have a 80% chance of earning no more than $2,000 in royalties. For many months or years of effort, that does not amount to a working wage. But of course you sign the contract: self-publishing won't be easier, and you'll not get better terms elsewhere.

Both author and publisher are clearly chasing a dream, but that is the nature of fiction publishing, and explains why publishers (and agents) need textbooks, self-help, cookery and gardening titles to survive.


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