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The printer would like to make a profit and so would the bookseller. Between 
the author and the bookseller is the publisher who also would like to make 
some money. If all that the writer submits to the publisher is a type script 
and photographs and figures, then somebody has to sort out the layout of the 
book, see to the captions and labels, sort out the page numbering, tables of 
contents and figures  and so on. If there is a comprehensive index then an 
indexer will have to be employed and paid. Any alterations at the proof stage 
may lead to the whole book being repaged and the index altered accordingly. 
Then there is marketing - the sales executive's salary has to be paid and 
buying - the bookseller's buyer has to be paid. If the book is to be 
hardbound in  cloth covered boards in a manner that will last for more than a 
few readings, that adds to the costs too. Oh, and of course the author would 
like at least a few percent of the spoils.

For The Naked Nautical Sextant, I did all the publisher's tasks myself, though 
two kind friends read it for me pre-publication and one of them oversaw the 
bibliography. I have a sextant addiction that needs to be fuelled, so I too 
hope for some spoils.

A scholarly work of limited general interest is unlikely to sell a great many 
copies, though over GBP100 does seem a bit steep. For that I could get my 
wife Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand in two fat hardbound 
illustrated volumes for Christmas. Perhaps I will.

Bill 


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