I'm worried that the correct conclusion is not that the publishers are missing out, but that maximum profit occurs at relatively low level of quality, such that anyone trying to create a worthy work-of-art in this space is by definition economically irrational. How does the "super amazing cookbook" that "won every award imaginable" fit into the theory that the attention to detail made a difference? Do you think it would have done even better on the market if they had used the more expensive printing processes you did? Or would it likely have done just about the same, but produced a few hundred thousand dollars less profit for the publisher?
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It won a James Beard Award for Best Cookbook from a Professional Point of View. Alinea is in it’s 6th printing edition with over 100,000 copies sold. The end results proved that customers could tell the difference. And at the extreme high end, the Spanish publisher Siloé has a facsimile of the Voynich manuscript coming out that attracted a lot of attention and preorders.
If you haven't seen it, the documentary "How to Make a Book with Steidl" is a nice look at a German publisher who appears to stay in business creating books with high attention to detail. While the current incumbent publishers are based on a low-risk high-volume corner-cutting model, might there be room for an upstart to take 10 Speed's place? Or room for a publisher who cares about books as art? Why do you think this is? Presumably, the deal worked out well enough economically for 10 Speed.
I really doubt any publisher will make a deal like that again anytime soon. But then 10 Speed Press, a great independent publisher that could adroitly make an unusual deal for a cool book, got sold to Crown Publishing in 2009. What were the factors that increased the printing costs between these books? Was it mostly photos vs text, or was something else the main driver? And at the volumes you sold, how does this difference end up comparing to the total cost of producing the book?Īnd I’d be happy to work under those terms again. Second book: Initial estimates for a print run of 15,000 and 30,000 are about $13.80 to $15.20 per unit for the basic book without any ‘extras’. I do have a few questions:īaseline: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US.įirst book: All told, the cost per unit was around $10.80 laden for the first edition run of 30,000 books.
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