THE REALITY OF PUBLISHING: and PRE_CHRISTMAS SALE!!!!

This post from Chris Emery, Director of Salt Publishing. It gives a very clear acount of the investment made by that publisher. The leap of faith that says 'we think your work will do OK...'

Each Salt title represents about £2,000 investment that's cost of sales and a share of the overhead. It means that every title has to do a lot of work to break even. Discounts vary from 20% to 60% dependent on the route to market (or sales channel) and the sales of individual volumes can vary hugely. Average first year sales are 200 copies. Some sell 1,000 copies, many sell around 150. Too many sell less than 50 copies. A few sell less than 5 copies. We need to sell around 310 copies to break even in the UK, 800 in Australia and 600 in the USA. That's before we make any money to pay for the next lots of books and to continue the publishing programme, never mind any capital we need for IT or new ventures...."

SALT PUBLISHING HERE is one of the best independent publishing houses out there. They are award winning. Innovative. Supportive. very picky. They work like demons for their books, for their writers.

Their poetry list is as good as you'll find anywhere. Two of this year's crop are on the broadsheet's 'best reads' this Christmas.

Think about a Salt book in a stocking for someone who loves poetry. Or short stories. GOOD short stories...

all Salt books are discounted ... get over there.