2.8 million trees cut down for books that nobody reads
Aside from spotting talented new authors publishers have the problem of projecting the sales of the books they publish to plan the print-runs accordingly. Due to the lack of reliable predictions the opportunity costs of running out of books because they’re sold out are usually higher then printing more books and pulping the unsold copies afterwards.
The result: every year about 30% of all books printed are being returned unsold. That’s about $7 billion of returned books in the US alone. Pretty impressive, huh? With some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations this translates into an even more impressive number: almost 3 million trees are being cut down for books that nobody reads, every year.
With your help we want to to improve the publisher’s predictions twofold prior to any print-run: first, on the discovery of new talent to ensure no talented author falls through the cracks; and secondly on the sales expectations for every book to save some of those trees - all based on the feedback of the readers who can screen the author’s manuscripts on quillp.
If you love books we’d love to hear from you - apply for your closed beta account.
Tags: Author, books, Publishing
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 15:48 and is filed under Announcement, Authors & Publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.