Sublime

Paper, of course, is a major component of the printing cost. Houses sometimes buy their own paper either to fit a consistent look and feel or to take advantage of purchasing economies of scale.

The temptation to overprint based on price breaks was recognized as a problem with a solution by an executive at Penguin in the early 1990s. Printing contracts were changed to charge a unit price based on the previous year’s “average” print runs, so there was no evident price break for larger reprint quantities. This saved the production department

The most visible and tactile choice, and often the one with the biggest impact on the unit cost, is the choice of the “sheet,” or the type of paper, which is now almost always a free-sheet (acid free) of varying weight, opacity, color, texture, and bulking-thickness. It makes a difference to the consumer flipping through the book in the store, but

Book manufacturing expense remains the single biggest line item in the trade publisher’s P&L, accounting for between 20 percent and 25 percent of costs when plant costs; paper, printing, and binding (PP&B); and inventory write-downs (the cost of books that are manufactured but not sold) are added up.