In Publisher's Marketplace one can read the daily news of woe and doom in the publishing industry. The most surprising thing is they seem to wonder why this is happening.

When one looks at a typical publisher's business plan the real surprise is that any publishers are still in business. If publisher A/Z decides to buy a book it plans to sell for $20 retail, A/Z must first spend from $5 to $8 of that on buying, editing, printing, and marketing the book. Now before they can distribute the book for sale, they must agree to give the national wholesalers a 50% discount off their $20. (Just two national wholesalers control this part of the industry) Publisher A/Z is now down to between $3 and $5 potential profit on his $20 book. Now A/Z must agree to let the retailer bookstores get the books free, keep them on their shelf for five or six weeks, then return them at no charge if the books don't sell. (Known at the "returns policy" and is demanded by the wholesale distributors) Cost for returned books include shipping, warehousing, reselling and shipping to a discount wholesaler. Sometimes it's cheaper for the publisher to just let the retailer destroy the books and ship back the front cover as proof. Some publishers print as many books as they can, as cheaply as they can, hoping for the one blockbuster that will sell a gillian copies and pay for all the rest. In an attempt to stay profitable, most publishers have cut editing and marketing and have raised the retail price of their books. The result is that the rise in price has far out-stripped the average person's pocketbook, causing a drop in sales.

Now, add to this bleak situation the current world-wide economic depression and various technological developments, such as the Internet, POD printing, Kindle and other digital downloads, and what have you got? An industry that should dump the old business plan and creatively set up a new one. The new plan should eliminate the returns policy, set up a more direct and more profitable distribution plan, and optimize technology within the publishing house so it works for the publisher, not against it. The new plan should also offer the consumer lower prices.

(Note: Lobathian has kept the retail price of Silent Coup at an old fashioned price point of $10.95)