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THE EDUCATION
OF A BOOKSELLER
Understanding the economics
of publishing
BY CLAIRE KIRCH
To help booksellers better understand the financial reali- ties of their colleagues on the publishing side, the American Booksellers Association is sponsoring a ses- sion at all eight fall regionals titled, “The Economics of Publishing and How They Impact Booksellers.” “One of the challenges of this business is that we don’t understand each other’s enterprises,” says
Bloomsbury USA publishing director George Gibson. “Part of
the education of a bookseller is to understand the economics of
publishing.”
Gibson is one of three publishing executives who volunteered
to host the sessions; he will speak at NAIBA, NEIBA, and
SIBA. Workman sales director Steven Pace will give a similar
presentation at MPIBA, NCIPBA, and PNBA, and Matty
Goldberg, president of publishing, client, and sales develop-
ment at Perseus, will speak at Heartland and SCIBA.
Gibson plans to walk booksellers through a standard
Bloomsbury profit-and-loss statement so they can see firsthand
how publishers decide whether to publish a given book and how
to price it. “You can explain every step of the process of publishing a book, [including] the decisions publishers make,
through the P&L.” The P&L statement for each book is based
on projected sales, the author’s advance, and the list price, as well
as other factors, such as the costs of manufacturing, distributing,
and marketing the book. Anticipated return rates, reprints, and
subsidiary rights are also taken into consideration. And, in
recent years, the process of publishing books in digital formats
has become an important part of the mix.
For the presentation, Gibson plans to select a P&L for a
frontlist title that will be on bookstore shelves this fall. He
acknowledges that he may have to fudge some numbers that are
proprietary. Still, he promises that “there will be enough reality
there that booksellers will get a clear picture.”
Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association (GLIBA)
executive director Deb Leonard, who handles scheduling at the
Heartland Fall Forum, anticipates that Gibson’s session will
benefit “new and newish” indie booksellers in particular. They
are especially important in her region, which added 19 member
stores since last year’s show. “Most booksellers I know didn’t
take business classes in high school or college and aren’t
