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Book | Page Count | Price |
Bright Against the Storm | 424 | $15.00 |
Ashes of Our Joy | 430 | $15.00 |
Rain, Wind, and Fire | 482 | $16.00 |
Darkness Gathers Round | 686 | $20.00 |
New-book prices are the same whether ordered from Hopewriter.com or Amazon.com, though shipping options differ. Used books and Kindle editions may be available more cheaply on Amazon. |
As you would expect, it costs more to print a longer book than a shorter one, so Rain, Wind, and Fire and Darkness Gathers Round cost a bit more. However, printing cost is not the main thing that sets the prices of books published by Hopewriter. To see this, check out this table of the approximate per-book cost of the different print runs that have been made as of August, 2011: |
Print Run | Number Printed | Unit Printing Cost |
|---|---|---|
Bright Against the Storm #1 | about 200 | about $7.00 |
Bright Against the Storm #2 | 1,000 | $3.66 |
Bright Against the Storm #3 | 3,023 | $2.75 |
Ashes of Our Joy #1 | 100 | $11.15 |
Ashes of Our Joy #2 | 863 | $3.53 |
Rain, Wind, and Fire #1 | 738 | $4.25 |
Darkness Gathers Round #1 | 712 | $5.46 |
The answer can be given in one word: Advertising. Almost no free publicity is available to publishers of fiction (the situation for non-fiction books is often very different).The vast majority of Hopewriter Publishing's budget goes to advertising -- and because of this, profits remain low to non-existent as of August, 2011.Here is a rough (but approximately accurate) example of how it works: When Bright Against the Storm was first published, it was advertised in World Magazine at a cost of $3,000 for one full-page ad. The ad resulted in sales of about 100 books. Thus those 100 books, through they cost only about $4 each to print, cost $30 each to sell. The profits? Negative $1,900.Since the publication of Rain, Wind, and Fire, things have been a bit better -- but Hopewriter Publishing can still barely afford to operate with the current book prices. If news of the books eventually gets out in a big way, enough people will be telling their friends about the books that we will no longer need to advertise extensively. Combined with the lower unit cost of larger print runs, this may allow us to reduce prices. This is the situation with most popular books you see sold on Amazon and in book stores for $7-10. |
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