Cauldron Farm (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cauldronfarm) wrote,@ 2008-02-17 08:02:00 |
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Why Full Fathom Five is marked as $60.
It isn't likely that anyone had noticed, but the retail price of Full Fathom Five is now $60. This irritates me. While it is a very nice book, I don't quite think it is $60 worth of nice. As far as Asphodel Press is concerned, the book is still $35. It costs $30 to print it, and $5 goes to the Big Sur Land Trust.
But to be made available to major retailers like Amazon, books must have a large retail distribution markup applied to them. This usually works out to twice the printing cost. For small black & white books, this isn't a problem, but a larger or full-color print-on-demand book is quite expensive.* That is why we sell those ones directly.
Incidentally, Lulu's pricing policy also means that if you purchase any Asphodel Press books through Lulu (rather than Amazon or another retailer) a much larger percentage of the money goes to the author or the charity in question. In the case of Full Fathom Five, my rough estimates of the financial breakdown is this...
Buy from Amazon: You pay $60 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets $20. Lulu gets $5. Big Sur gets $5.
Buy from Lulu: You pay $60 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets nothing. Lulu gets $5. Big Sur gets $25.
Buy from us directly: You pay $35 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon and Lulu get nothing. Big Sur gets $5.
Buy from us via Amazon's "New & Used" section: You pay $40 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets $5. Lulu gets nothing. Big Sur gets $5.
With books that have a low printing cost or are not marked for retail distribution, the retail distribution charge is close to our shipping and fulfillment costs. That is why we don't stock them.
-- Joshua
*We've been patiently waiting for the cost of POD color printing to come down so we can release print copies of Earthbound. Presently, I think the print cost alone is around $75 per book. It is a big book.
It isn't likely that anyone had noticed, but the retail price of Full Fathom Five is now $60. This irritates me. While it is a very nice book, I don't quite think it is $60 worth of nice. As far as Asphodel Press is concerned, the book is still $35. It costs $30 to print it, and $5 goes to the Big Sur Land Trust.
But to be made available to major retailers like Amazon, books must have a large retail distribution markup applied to them. This usually works out to twice the printing cost. For small black & white books, this isn't a problem, but a larger or full-color print-on-demand book is quite expensive.* That is why we sell those ones directly.
Incidentally, Lulu's pricing policy also means that if you purchase any Asphodel Press books through Lulu (rather than Amazon or another retailer) a much larger percentage of the money goes to the author or the charity in question. In the case of Full Fathom Five, my rough estimates of the financial breakdown is this...
Buy from Amazon: You pay $60 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets $20. Lulu gets $5. Big Sur gets $5.
Buy from Lulu: You pay $60 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets nothing. Lulu gets $5. Big Sur gets $25.
Buy from us directly: You pay $35 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon and Lulu get nothing. Big Sur gets $5.
Buy from us via Amazon's "New & Used" section: You pay $40 + S&H. The printer gets $30. Amazon gets $5. Lulu gets nothing. Big Sur gets $5.
With books that have a low printing cost or are not marked for retail distribution, the retail distribution charge is close to our shipping and fulfillment costs. That is why we don't stock them.
-- Joshua
*We've been patiently waiting for the cost of POD color printing to come down so we can release print copies of Earthbound. Presently, I think the print cost alone is around $75 per book. It is a big book.
