How many copies of a Book need to be sold for a publisher to break even?
How many copies of a Book need to be sold for a publisher to break even?
(12 posts) (8 voices)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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This depends on the book's production costs, as well as the price the publisher sets. In general, my impression from talking to editors is that most books in politics science need to sell at least 200-300 copies to break even and at least 400 or so to be profitable enough to warrant a paperback or second printing run. But I should caution that I have only a few anecdotal data points.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Interesting. I am assuming that most go institutional purchasers (libraries) rather than individual sales to folks like you and me. I wonder how many of those there are? Or more to the point: how many libraries/librarians end-up purchasing a standard political science tome? And would such a number vary across disciplines?
(My hunch is that the average history book gets sold to more libraries than the average political science book since they tend to have a longer "shelf life," but this is all just speculation.)
Posted 3 years ago # -
Thanks! hal2001
Posted 3 years ago # -
>> My hunch is that the average history book gets sold to more libraries than the average political science book since they tend to have a longer "shelf life," but this is all just speculation.
Given that it's no harder to get a PS book published than a history book, I doubt they are less profitable.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Political science books from mid-range to top presses typically sell at least 200-300 library copies, with 500 library copies the high end of what's normal. If a book has interdisciplinary or mass appeal, it can go quite a bit higher.
Posted 3 years ago # -
hal2001's figure also sound about right to me in general, but the number is going to vary with the publisher -- I've also heard figures (from a few years ago; things are changing rapidly) that were about twice that. Library subscriptions -- that is, situations where the library buys pretty much everything a major publisher puts out -- have dropped substantially (largely under pressure from outrageous costs for journal subscriptions in the natural sciences) and so the guaranteed market for social science books is far less than it once was.
Most academic editors I know at the major university presses (and the specialized academic presses like Rienner) will be quite up front with this information. The commercial conglomerates might be more cagey.
Posted 3 years ago # -
If 500 library copies are the high end, can anyone tell me what typical sales are for Political Science for each cloth and paperback at a major university press?
Posted 3 years ago # -
I just looked up 10 Cambridge political science books published between 2001 and 2007. I included at least two from each of American, comparative, IR and theory. According to WorldCat, library holdings average 348, and range from 216 to 638. That presumably would be the majority of hardcover sales for those books. Paperback numbers will depend greatly on classroom use. My last two, which are not appropriate for intro courses, both are at around 750 paperback.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yeah, I thought about looking at WorldCat, too--but is it exhaustive, or does it just cover university libraries? (Just curious.)
Posted 3 years ago # -
I suspect WorldCat is pretty exhaustive of the relevant libraries for most academic political books, and in the low to mid 300s is about what the major press editors have told me that they expect for library sales these days for most political science titles. That is way, way down from what they could have expected just a few years ago. The humanities are even worse off in terms of library acquisitions, which is partly why they are talking about a monograph crisis as presses stop publishing them in response.
Posted 3 years ago # -
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……..,-‘ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;¯¯’’¯ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; , ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;’’-,Posted 3 years ago #