This is a perfect video for Mother’s Day weekend. Please read the story, then click through to the YouTube video. A Mother dances with her blind daughter in an absolutely beautiful way.
HT: Ann Voskamp’s “Only the Good Stuff“
by Steve Laube
Understanding the economics of your local brick-and-mortar bookstore should help you understand the upheaval that is happening in our industry. So put on your math cap and let’s take a ride.
This article focuses on the bookstore not the publisher or the writer. I spent over a decade in the Christian bookstore business, and while that was a long time ago the economic principles are the same.
Let’s start with a $10 book (retail price). I’m using $10 because it will make the math a little easier to follow.
The bookstore buys the book for $6 (or 40% discount off the retail price) from the publisher (who calls that $6 the net price). Note that this discount varies between 40% and 50%.
When the books sells to a customer the store then makes a $4 profit ($10 – $6 = $4).
If the store discounts the book during a 20% off promotion they have to sell two copies to make that same $4 profit. But often a 20% off sale is not enough to double the sales volume. Why? Because a high-volume operation like Amazon.com is happy to sell that $10 book for $6.50 (35% off). They can do this because they plan on selling 10 copies at the discounted price and clear $5 in profit. This pricing strategy has a chilling effect on the ability of the local store to compete.
Before watching today’s video, I would never have guessed how many languages are spoken on Earth today. Amaze your friends with the answer! In the midst of the video, Tom Scott makes a point about words that have changed meaning in recent years (before and after the Internet). I thought …
by Steve Laube
In the constant ebb and flow of this industry we have authors celebrating and authors in tears. Ask any agent and you will hear the same. For every author excited about their new contract there is another experiencing bitter disappointment.
And I wish I could fix it.
To hear the anguish is difficult, but to be the one who delivers the bad news is heart-wrenching. Why is it that they seem to come in bunches? So what do you do when you run into the inevitable disappointments the writing experience throws at you?
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Considering the topic of the post on Monday, April 5, today’s video is absolutely perfect. Are YOU a dedicated reader like this? (If you cannot see the embedded video in your newsletter email, please click the headline and go directly to our site to view it.) HT: Trissina Kear
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We at the Steve Laube Agency were shocked and so very saddened yesterday morning to learn of the tragic events that took the life of our client, Dr. Robert Lesslie, along with his wife, two of their grandchildren, and two others. We express our sincere prayers and our heartfelt condolences …
Last year David Steele created this document: “A Christian Reading Manifesto.” It bears review for those of us in the writing of books and those who believe in the power of reading said books. Given the efforts of our secular culture to redefine words and their meaning, his statement “Reading …
