Small Press Publishing for Profit, Part 1A: ‘The Fix’
A series of articles in which Valley Press founder Jamie McGarry reveals his tried-and-tested formula for making a living as a self-employed literary publisher. This article is a addendum to part one of the series, responding to feedback from other publishers in the four days immediately afterwards.
In the first article of this series, I gave a detailed breakdown of a book’s RRP, explaining who gets which bits of (an example) £8.99 once it is sold to a reader — and suggested that a new ‘small press’ publisher could expect a net profit of £3 per copy. In part two, I am going to explain how to build a business around that figure; but we’re not ready for that yet. We need to talk about discounts.
I confidently wrote in the introduction to part one that I would explain how to ‘hang on’ to the £3 no matter what; and I when I shut my laptop after finishing it, I felt I had, by touching on other ways a book might sell (like at book fairs or through direct online selling). I wasn’t prepared for the reaction of the small press community; it turns out a lot of people aren’t getting their £3. But they should be. We need to get this sorted.
First of all: let me describe what it takes to seriously penetrate the retail market, to publish the way a company like Penguin does. It takes an army of sales reps, wholesale…
