I stumbled across a very interesting blog post by Robert J. Sawyer that was written about a year ago.  I read through the post and all of the comments and enjoyed seeing the exchanges that took place. One part of the post that I was particularly interested in was Sawyer’s analysis of the financial benefits of open publishing. Speaking about the possibility of seeing a spike in sales due to a free version of a book being available Sawyer said,

“A mass-market paperback by a new author a year after release is doing tremendously well if it sells 100 copies a week…so if such a book sees a spike doubling that — to 200 — then that’s 100 additional copies. For a $7.99 paperback at 8% royalties, a hundred copies sold is $64 gross for the author, minus a 15% agent’s commission, for a net income of $54.”

On the flip side if there is 100 dip in sales, the net loss is only $54. Of course the publisher has a much larger financial cost/benefit  potential.

As I thought about this in terms of academic publications I wondered what the average print run of academic titles are. Some older articles (here and here) indicate that it’s about 1000-1500, possibly much less today.

Let’s round up and say that a really good academic title is going to sell 5,000 copies. If the hardcover book sells for $25 with 10% author royalties, the author of the book will earn 12,500.Now let’s suppose that free digital distribution could affect sales by as much as ten percent (this is a claim that I have not heard anyone make — it seems a little far fetched to me).The author stands to gain/lose $1,250, with the publisher gaining/losing more.

Of course if we are looking at a print run of 500 copies now we talking about royalties of 1,250 with a +/- of $125 for the free distribution effect.

But what if there is no sales effect? What has been gained? Possibly recognition for the author. And the intangible benefit of being able to email friends/family members a copy of a book. For example if an academic is lecturing s/he could tell the crowd about his/her book, but it sounds like marketing. Perhaps the academic would prefer to say, “I’ve written on this subject and if you’re as excited about it as I am, please go download a free copy of my book.”