Thursday, December 22, 2005

$elf publishing in Singapore

Pinched this link from Sharon's blog. I'm putting it here because it's related to the articles in my previous entry. Here are some figures culled from the said Straits Times article of 17 Dec 2005, So Many Authors, So Few Readers.
Self-pub authorTitleOutlayCopies sold
Harris NgReovered Grace (autobio)S$8,000600
Low Kay HwaI believe you (love story)S$2,3401/2 of first print run
Emily TaiWill Your Child Eat a Tomato? (cookbook)S$20,000220 out of 5,000
Joanna WongSqueaky… He’s more than a squirrel (children’s bk)S$23,0001,800 out of 10,000
Mohamed Ismail GafoorYou Can Fly (in Eng, Chi, BM)S30,000

Where the money goes

Cost of publishing book:20%(includes printing, layout, editing & cover design)
Author royalty:10%
Distributors:50-55%
Publisher's gross profit:15-20%(before deducting overheads like rent and salaries)

Assuming that a self-published author appoints a distributor to place the books in the bookstores, his profit would be 25-30% gross.

Personally, I’d rather take the 10% royalty and concentrate on the writing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Lydia! Thanks for that gem of an article (The straits Time). Very informative! I made a print out too.


Cheers,
Yvonne
The Sky is Crazy

Picatho (百可度) said...

Wish you a ho ho ho Christmas & N/year!

Lydia Teh said...

Yvonne, gotta thank Sharon who'll say, gotta thank Philip...
p3p4, same-same.

Kak Teh said...

very informative -merry christmas lydia!