Interesting facts on paper quality (hint for a certain publisher)

[Jukka Juutinen]

Richard, thanks for the support! You have been the only one who understood my points perfectly.

Let´s refresh some facts. The book on which the one dollar difference is based has 320 pages in American 8.5" x 11" (i.e. the area per page is about 5% lower than that of the A4 format [210 mm x 297 mm]) format and is about an American Army unit. The book´s print run is 3000. The paper used resembles paper used in e.g. Grub Street´s "Buffaloes over Singapore" (i.e. of considerably lesser quality than the paper used by Classic). The total paper cost was approx. $22,000. Now, if that very crude (OK for printing text but very unsuitable for illustrations) paper was replaced by real glossy paper (e.g. International Air Power Review), additional paper cost would have been $3000 for the whole print run, i.e. one dollar per book. Now, some of you might ask why didn´t they use the glossy paper. Well, the book was intented for American mass market. As the book is, the cover price is $29.95 and the better paper would have pushed the price to $32.50 (to allow for bookseller discount). Now, due to the perverse nature of American mass market, that $2.50 increase beyond the threshold of $30 would have halved the sales, according to their market analysis.

That publisher was ready to admit that the European book market is different and here such effects do not take place. And I doubt that a $2.50 price increase of e.g. Helicopters of the Third Reich woud have affected the sales a bit.