Path: utzoo!dciem!array!colin
From: colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: expensive TeX book
Message-ID: <584@array.UUCP>
Date: 24 Aug 90 19:38:12 GMT
References: <8164@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <1990Aug22.222115.936@nmt.edu> <44813@cornell.UUCP> <1990Aug23.101127.22458@ioe.lon.ac.uk>
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 23

Does anyone know what makes publishers so expensive and slow?
I was thinking about how long it should take for a book to go
from complete edited and formatted manuscript to bookstores,
and it seemed like it should be doable is 6 weeks.  I budgeted
2 weeks for cover art & phototypesetter mastering, 2 weeks for
printing and binding, and 2 weeks for shipping.  It all seems
like plenty, although I could understand being a little slower
if you're running close to capacity.

Yet an economics professor told me he's been handed absolute minima of
6 months.  He and some friends started publishing themselves so they
could make annual revisions to their texts during each summer and have
it ready for the students that autumn.

And what's with the price?  I have oceans of photocopies of books that
are worth $20 to me or so, but not the $60 that's being charged.  I
believe I can assume that printing a book is cheaper, per copy, than
photocopying it.  So where does the extra $40 go?  Is editing *that*
expensive?  I realize the latency is longer, but does a typical textbook
where the author does the illustrations in pic or whatever take more than
a month of an editor's time?
-- 
	-Colin