31 replies to this topic

[helioseism2]

Since I am ignorant of the details of the costs of producing quality motor sport books and since discussion of this topic is now forbidden in the books section, I am starting this thread to ask for a quantitative example of costs to produce such a book. I do not expect anyone to reveal data for an actual existing publication, a hypothetical example would suffice. Please educate me.

[Richard Jenkins]

I'd imagine a lot of it is governed by the photo budget.
If say, they have had to pay £100 for each photo and there's 500 photos, then that's 50,000 on photos alone that needs recouping without publishing costs, royalties to the author, promotion costs and so on

Maybe 500 at £100 is extreme, but it gives a guideline.

With my two books it has been different. The photo budget has been kept to a minimum, publicity has largely been driven by myself yet the cost of the book each time has still been £27 which gives a little idea. If the publisher has struck a good deal to get 132 pages printed and it is still bumping it up to £27, then you can only imagine how much a 600 page glossy book would cost.

Sadly, as so many motorsport publishers have gone bust, there's only really around 8 or 9 specialists now that simply don't have the funds or personnel to match Hodder and Stoughton or Simon and Schuster etc

[john aston]

I think the benchmark for automotive books value for money was set by Rainer Schlegelmilch's wonderful Sports Car Racing 1962 - 1973. Yes , he owns the photos , but for 552 pages of unadulterated pornography  £30 was astonishing value . And makes one wonder just how and why some single chassis works are so grotesquely pricey .

 

That said , the buying public has been conditioned by the web into expecting free content and sneers at magazines costing the price of a frothy coffee and books at the price of a takeaway meal . 

 

I kept a record of the time I spent writing and researching my last book and let's just say the royalties haven't repaid me yet ... 

[Collombin]

It doesn't help that the motorsport history enthusiast is a rare (but hopefully not endangered) species. I don't suppose that too many books in the genre reach a 4 figure sales quantity.

[davidbuckden]

I can forgive a lot when the photography is excellent. I'm also perfectly happy to pay for a really good binding, and this I've seen in the last year with my purchases of the Gautam Sen two volume celebration of Gandini, and the Lamborghini Miura Register. Another beautifully made book I've recently bought is Gordon Murray's One Formula.  However, there's a tendency for books like this to be ever bigger and heavier - just as unfortunate as the ongoing bloating of so many cars themselves, the Porsche 911 being a very notable example. I appreciate that in order to present good photographs, a large format and heavy paper are desirable things, but the consequent weight and size make the book difficult to hold and page-turn comfortably for the simple intended purpose of reading it!

 

I was recently contemplating buying the Abarth Catalogue Raisonne, but noticed a number of feedback posts which spoke of the binding falling apart very quickly.  On the rebound I reconsidered a book I'd previously only glanced at, and decided to buy it: Abarth Racing Cars - Collection 1949-1974.  Whilst we seem to have been conditioned of late to accept that such books are going to set us back hundreds of pounds, this one is not only packed with great images of great cars, but is not too big, not really heavy, and . . . cost me less than £25! 

[SamoanAttorney]

Over the last few years I have been involved in the production of several books, both currently and in the recent past. So using those as an example.

 

One such project that is in the final stages, awaiting the green light for printing, has costs running out at around the £50k mark for 1,000 copies.

 

It is a 288 page, large-format effort that is well researched, written and illustrated; photos at the £40 mark and the writer was properly rewarded.

 

A slip case would probably add another £10k to the budget.

 

So just to break-even the book would have to retail in excess of £60. 

 

A publisher might expect a return of 50%, which would push the price up to £120. The 'profit' would be eaten up by their normal business overheads and the commission paid to the few remaining book-sellers. It also makes the wild assumption that the book would sell out, even with such small numbers printed.

 

This illustrates why many of these specialist books are funded by individuals who want the story told and guarantee the costs to the specialist publishers.

 

The larger publishing houses would not touch these niche projects with a bargepole, those of us interested in such topics would not have the opportunity to buy such items. History would be lost and all that would remain is the inaccurate legends that float around the world-wide-web on social media.

 

No one is getting rich on the back of this activity, the value is in the existence of the book and the preservation of history.

[Vitesse2]

Approximately 50% of the cover price of any book - whatever its genre or standard of production - is accounted for by the sales and distribution of the final product. This includes the bookseller's profit margin - normally anywhere from 25% and 40% of the retail price depending on a range of factors, but usually about 35% (out of which you have to extract the bookseller's own costs - shop expenses, staff and other overheads; most bookshops end up with a net profit of around 3-4% of turnover). The publisher's fixed costs for the finished product include their own warehousing and distribution - possibly by a third party - and the carriage cost of actually getting the books into the bookshop.

 

Even before the book goes to the printer you have to account for - as already highlighted - the reproduction rights for photographs, copy editing - possibly outsourced to a freelance for specialist works - layout and design (probably in-house), indexing (which probably can't be done until the page proofs are available) etc etc. A quick glance at any of the self-publishing websites will show the sort of amounts they charge for this; obviously a commercial publisher will have some of these people on salary, but their time still costs money and needs to be budgeted in.

 

The Schlegelmilch sports car book is kind of the exception that proves the rule, in that the reproduction rights were presumably not charged as part of the equation. It was also a multi-lingual publication, so there was just one print run, from one publisher, sold worldwide; in that respect it mimics some of his earlier works published by Konemann. The Abarth book David mentions is also dual-language - English and German - which no doubt widens the available market for what is a pretty niche subject (it does actually look to have been remaindered, though, as one of the Amazon reviews quotes a price of €50 and another €78!)

[Collombin]

When you see the prices at which some high quality books are changing hands on the second-hand market you could easily argue that they were actually underpriced to start with.

I usually roll my eyes when I hear a seller describe something as an "investment" as part of their sales patter but in this particular field it can be a just description, even if resale values are an unlikely purchasing motive for the real enthusiast.

[SamoanAttorney]

Now with a little more coffee on board.....

 

The project I was using as an illustration was never intended to make a profit, covering part or all of the costs was the objective, so it is perhaps a poor example.

 

However, the budget is still valid, just the margins need updating.

 

The book trade is a hard one to make any money in, especially for the author; the amount of time and effort that goes into research and writing is almost never repaid, finishing the work is its own reward. Still, what else might I be doing with my waking hours?

[Graham Gauld]

Having published five books myself using a normal printer because the larger publishers’ marketing department felt they were not commercial, I can safely say that self-publishing is possible provided you consider the following.

1. You have a reasonable idea, of how to use your  Publisher programme on your computer.
2. Doing  a single or two column page style and fitting in the photos and captions and the like. Then giving a disc with your woerk to a normal printer, they will transfer it to fit their own computer programme.
3. If  you have a reasonable printer he may allow you to pay the print bill by instalments.
4. As some of the books I published were mainly covered by black and white photos I was able to place a colour section in the centre of the book to cover that. The reason is that most books are published in formes  in groups of 4,8,16  etc pages which means if you have 12 pages of colour pictures they fit neatly in the middle of the book. The real costs come when you want to mix the colour and black and white anywhere.
5. When it comes to print run a normal run of the mill motor sport biography or book can sustain a print run of 2000 copies Worldwide,  however the printer will give you what is called a “run on” price if you decided to add an extra 1000 copies which is a fraction of the initial cost of the original 2000 copies.
6. In my case most of the photographs were from my own archives but some suppliers of photographs can sometimes come to a reasonable publishing price per photo depending on how many you need from that archive but obviously the more rare the photos the greater the price.
7. So, now you are at home………….the printer is printing your copies and you are waiting to see the first copy.  THIS is where the problems start.

For example,……..look at your bookshelf and select a book that is almost exactly the same size of the book you planned…………Measure it and weigh it and then ask yourself the following question. HOW AM I GOING TO STORE THE BLOODY THINGS as 2000 copies of any book take up a lot of space and weigh literally tons.

You  have now worked that out so what is the next thing ? ……… Well you have to then contact all the major specialist motoring booksellers and find out what percentage of the cover price they want to take just to stock your book in the first place…… You might be surprised at just how high that can be. Some of those booksellers however are international distributors for some of the books they sell and so that helps.

Good, you have that sorted out:  ……..NEXT  by what method are you going to supply a major bookseller say, 200 miles  from you if he asks you for 50 copies ?  Go back to the dimensions of the book and the weight and work out the size of package that would be and then get on to one of the delivery companies and find out what that would cost.

Then we forgot about an ISBN number (  International Standard Book Number ) an ISBN number is how any bookshop can automatically trace you to send him some copies for customers.  Look up ISBN on the computer and it explains it all.

 

I think I will stop there and let you ponder those things.

Publishing a book needs great faith and the ability to sit around waiting for the books to sell.  To give an example I published 2000 copies of one of my books back in 1992 and I still have 25 of them left which I guard carefully as they are now worth about three times their original cover price  !

With all five of the books I self published  it took about two years of sales before I had paid off the printing and publishing costs and then every book sold was straight into my pocket but as the years go by hundreds of other books have been published and your book gets forgotten.

So there you have it : and you wonder why books are so expensive these days.Back in 1992 it was much cheaper and the last hard cover book I published cost me £17,000 to print which is peanuts today unless you have a good tame printer.

But its fun !!!!

GG

[john aston]

My three books (two on an unrelated subject ) have all been published by 'name' publishers in their field. It has been a different  experience each time- my first , in 2007 was brilliant at marketing. cover deign and sub editing. My second was  largely hands off and my third   was different again.  Very prescriptive on  title (which now has to be SEO ) , insistent on my doing an index (no problem , but God above , it takes time ) and with a very interventionist sub editor. Which is a mixed blessing when you have the (hated and old fashioned ) Oxford comma forced on you and (incorrect ) amendments made without my knowledge.   

 

The biggest lesson I've learned is - don't be shy, it wont sell itself , so be prepared to plug by whatever means you can. And ...grr..don't assume that despite being targetted at a certain market , the magazines which target the same  will  review your book. Oddly enough, on my books about non -motorsport subjects , reviews were widely published .    

[Charlieman]

An old mate published small volume market chess books in the 1970s onwards. Occasionally he needed photos which came from his personal or friends' libraries so cost there was modest, but the special typesetting for chess symbols was the opposite! He worked on 33%/33%/33% -- split for upfront production costs, for profit, business overheads and warehousing, for booksellers' margin.

 

Graham Gauld makes a good point about colour printing. Some art books (comparable in price to specialist motor sport works) have been printed on five colour presses -- CMYK plates for the images and a separate K plate for the text. When printing black text on an offset litho, you tend to get stripes on the K ink rollers which can result in patches on the colour images.

 

My chess publisher mate produced some colour plates using a home made separation process using filters and standard photographic paper. There's a bit of stretch on the paper and teeth are a bit too white -- a bit like the Today newspaper in the 1980s.

[helioseism2]

What do you all think of this guess for which I take full responsibility without any experience in the publishing field?

----------------------------------------------

Estimated costs to produce a hypothetical 300-page high-quality book with 300 photos:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photo licenses: 300 photos @ $100-200 each = $30,000-60,000
Author fee: $10,000-50,000
Printing/binding: $0.25/page X 300 pages = $75 per book
500 copy print run: 500 X $75 = $37,500 printing cost
lower estimated total for 500 copies: 30,000+10,000+37,500 = 77,500 = $155 per book
higher estimated total for 500 copies: 60,000+50,000+37,500 = 147,500 = $295 per book
1000 copy print run: 1000 X $75 = $75,000 printing cost
lower estimated total for 1000 copies: 30,000+10,000+75,000 = 115,000 = $115 per book
higher estimated total for 1000 copies: 60,000+50,000+75,000 = 185,000 = $185 per book

These numbers are all WAGs (wild-a** guesses) on my part, but amazingly, the prices per book seem plausible. Since the estimates don't include any profit it seems that prices of $300-400 may indeed be reasonable.

 

[john aston]

Still waiting for my $50k author fee. Where the writer isn't commissioned but writes the book for and by him/herself you get a cut of royalties from the publisher and , if you are lucky , a cash advance. Unless the book is likely to be a big seller, I can confirm that the advance is not life changing . 

[Richard Jenkins]

I'd love a £10k author fee! Can't wait for helioseism2 to become my publisher with those author fees!

[Colbul1]

Yes, I think an author royalty would be in the region of 5-10%, unless they produced a blockbuster!

 

The real juggling act for a publisher is finding the balance between price and sales of course.  They will run calculations based on projections and a niche book which may sell 200 copies will of course have to have a higher price point than a similar sized book which may sell 2000 copies.  The idea that any motor racing book would sell more than 10,000 copies is rather rare these days.

[Michael Ferner]

Yes, I think an author royalty would be in the region of 5-10%, unless they produced a blockbuster!

 

Even that is a bit high. It used to be between 3½  and 6½, basically, depending on author's clout and market conditions, but that was a long time ago.

[Doug Nye]

Indeed - royalties of 5-10 per cent?  Where specialist books are concerned, dream on...

 

As someone incapable of selling overcoats to eskimos the commercial side of this malarky is to me a foreign country. Producing something essentially for a fee with occasionally a small ongoing interest in sales has always got us by.  My missis and I tend to think of books as 'the three-piece suite', or 'the garden chalet', or 'the school fees for another year'...what they secured for us, and that is it.  

 

Part of me I guess regards the worthwhile ones as a new family member, or maybe another footprint left behind. I have my own favourites which I think worked out well - and some represent my own black marks too (am I allowed to say that these days?).

 

But overall, good books really do cost.  They really are expensive to produce, to store, to promote and to sell.  I'm only really ever involved in the production side.  And if you care about what you do then we have only ourselves to blame for the pay rate normally being just abysmal, and making no intelligent sense whatsoever.  On an hourly basis it's way, way, below minimum wage - and probably represents mere decimals of a penny per hour.  

 

But who would have such a boring mindset as to make that calculation? If you have an enquiring mind - and what you consider a riveting subject about which to enquire - there are worse ways of spending one's days.  

 

All I would add is a really sincere thank you to those fellow-enthusiasts who do purchase these works. 

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 13 December 2021 - 16:01.

[Roger Clark]

Indeed - royalties of 5-10 per cent?  Where specialist books are concerned, dream on...

 

As someone incapable of selling overcoats to eskimos the commercial side of this malarky is to me a foreign country. Producing something essentially for a fee with occasionally a small ongoing interest in sales has always got us by.  My missis and I tend to think of books as 'the three-piece suite', or 'the garden chalet', or 'the school fees for another year'...what they secured for us, and that is it.  

 

Part of me I guess regards the worthwhile ones as a new family member, or maybe another footprint left behind. I have my own favourites which I think worked out well - and some represent my own black marks too (am I allowed to say that these days?).

 

But overall, good books really do cost.  They really are expensive to produce, to store, to promote and to sell.  I'm only really ever involved in the production side.  And if you care about what you do then we have only ourselves to blame for the pay rate normally being just abysmal, and making no intelligent sense whatsoever.  On an hourly basis it's way, way, below minimum wage - and probably represents mere decimals of a penny per hour.  

 

But who would have such a boring mindset as to make that calculation? If you have an enquiring mind - and what you consider a riveting subject about which to enquire - there are worse ways of spending one's days.  

 

All I would add is a really sincere thank you to those fellow-enthusiasts who do purchase these works. 

 

DCN

And equally sincere thanks from us to you.

[Collombin]

I understand that the author's advance is offset against future royalties - does that mean that if the book sales are particularly disappointing then the author has to repay some of the advance, or is that a risk borne by the publisher?

[Tim Murray]

All I would add is a really sincere thank you to those fellow-enthusiasts who do purchase these works.

DCN

And equally sincere thanks from us to you.

Absolutely. To Doug and all the other authors who have produced those wonderful books that I treasure: thank you so much. You have enriched my life.

[Sterzo]

All I would add is a really sincere thank you to those fellow-enthusiasts who do purchase these works. 

 

DCN

It saves us having to drop a coin in your hat on the way out from Starbucks.
 

[Vitesse2]

I understand that the author's advance is offset against future royalties - does that mean that if the book sales are particularly disappointing then the author has to repay some of the advance, or is that a risk borne by the publisher?

Depends on the individual contract. In some cases it's a one-off payment with no further emolument unless the book is actually reprinted, so the publisher bears any loss on the first print run - if there's a reprint the author might then be on a small percentage of net sales.

 

I think some works are published on what is essentially a commission basis - no advance, just a percentage of net sales. I recall once being told by an author of a book on sailing technique that his publisher - Nautical Publishing - had actually sent him a statement of his earnings which was a negative figure, as during the period in question the number of copies returned unsold to the publisher had exceeded the number they'd sold into bookshops!

[Derwent Motorsport]

I have quite a large motoring library built up from when I was in short trousers, but I've not added much to it in recent years and have started to sell off titles as at some point after my time no one will know of their value and as I've not opened some for decades they might was well pay for a nice weekend away.  

Someone did say some years ago that all the good motoring books had been written and to some extend that is true, particularly as the likes of the members here get older so  books about lesser cars of the 50s are going to have a small audience. I'd love the Simon Taylor book about HWM which was obviously a labour of love but I can't really justify the cost for something I would read only once.  

I usually buy a couple of books to take on holiday to read on the plane. One is usually a motorsport book  plus another non fiction one plus some current magazines. Last month I went on Amazon to see what was available that took my fancy and for the first time there was no motoring books I wanted. I bought the Noel Fitzpatrick autobiography ( a wonderfully emotional tale of a honest genius) plus the latest Amanda Owen book which has a feel good factor. Total cost £25. and are now being read by my wife and other family members so good value. Of course their sales will be massive compared to our interests and the costs will be less in terms that there would be little need for research and all the photos belong to the author.  

[Gary C]

I self-published my two books. Through Michael Hipperson I got hold of a very good designer in Oxford, who then put me on to a local printer who did a really good job. The designer cost me around £950, the printer printed 3,000 of Volume 1 for a very reasonable price. Both books are 122 pages of colour and B&W pictures, not hardback (way too pricey) but they have a stiff cover. All images came from my own collection so therefore there was no charge for them, or my time in cleaning them up and writing the text. I wanted to make them available at a good price, so sell them at £15 each plus p&p. The website for them is here www.shutterandspeed.com

Edited by Gary C, 15 December 2021 - 18:14.

[D-Type]

I've read all the posts on here and the explanations of the costs of publishing.  I have to ask how did Harper Collins manage to keep the price of Adrian Newey's excellent How to Build a Car down to just £20?

Edited by D-Type, 17 December 2021 - 13:01.

[Collombin]

I only skimmed through it in a shop, but isn't it quite a small book on bog-standard paper (not quite literally) and with very few pictures (certainly none in colour)?

None of which necessarily prevents it from being an excellent book, of course.

[SamoanAttorney]

My copy is 390 pages and it is much bigger than a paperback.

 

I suspect that Harper Collins can get a book ready for publishing at a lower rate than most due to economies of scale.

 

I also suspect that Newey paid for the book to be produced, thus allowing a lower selling price, and a higher quantity to be printed.

 

He can certainly afford it.

[Vitesse2]

I've read all the posts on here and the explnations of the costs of publishing.  I have to ask how did Harper Collins manage to keep the price of Adrian Newey's excellent How to Build a Car down to just £20?

When you're as big as HarperCollins you get real economies of scale. They have extensive sales operations or agents in all the major English-speaking markets, plus several European offices, as well as in Brazil, Mexico and Japan - all built on the framework of the old William Collins and Harper & Row companies' sales networks. So unlike small specialist publishers, who will generally only operate from one country, they have a ready-made worldwide market built in. If you're someone like Evro, shipping 50 books to Japan is a major operation as you also have to find a way of distributing them once they get there - for HarperCollins it's just a matter of putting them in the next container load ...

 

There is also a French-language version published by Éditions Talent, which is probably sub-licensed from HarperCollins - all goes to keep their origination costs down.

[Charlieman]

I'll second Vitesse's comments. Major publishers prepare their Christmas publication lists in late spring and announce the ones which will receive major promotions to the trade in late autumn. Thanks to economies of scale, these titles are hugely discounted. The Newey book was heavily promoted in supermarkets as a gift. The Yotam Ottolenghi cookery book Simple, hard bound with lots of colour plates was marketed in the same way -- widely available for £18.

[PaulButler58]

It also fascinates me (in an odd way) how you can see some books hit places like "The Works" at vastly discounted prices not long after they have hit the market. I always have the thought in my head that if they can sell at that price and still (I assume) make a profit then why wasn't the book priced accordingly in the first place.

 

I have to say (and no affiliation here) I have picked up some cracking bargains from "The Works" over the years, their selection of the Haynes books seem particularly broad.

 

Also (and again no affiliation here) Trago Mills in Devon must have a cracking buyer, I've bought books from there for sub £10 that I see advertised elsewhere for a damn sight more. It's a pity that I live so far away from it otherwise I'd be there every week.

Edited by PaulButler58, 17 December 2021 - 12:04.

[D-Type]

It also fascinates me (in an odd way) how you can see some books hit places like "The Works" at vastly discounted prices not long after they have hit the market. I always have the thought in my head that if they can sell at that price and still (I assume) make a profit then why wasn't the book priced accordingly in the first place.

 

I have to say (and no affiliation here) I have picked up some cracking bargains from "The Works" over the years, their selection of the Haynes books seem particularly broad.

 

Also (and again no affiliation here) Trago Mills in Devon must have a cracking buyer, I've bought books from there for sub £10 that I see advertised elsewhere for a damn sight more. It's a pity that I live so far away from it otherwise I'd be there every week.

A friend in the publishing trade told me they budget this in at the start.  The main sales run covers the costs (plus a reasonable profit).  The printing plant is set up so running off a couple of thousand more costs them not much more than the cost of paper - so they can still make a profit at the discounted price.

Edited by D-Type, 20 December 2021 - 19:33.