As recently as, oh, sometime last week, my understanding was that one way to justify smaller initial print runs was because it was easier to just go back and reprint the book when copies sold out. An initial printing of 20K and three subsequent 2500 or 5000 copy reprints was better than sales of 35K out of a 50K print run because there was no wastage (numbers simplified for the sake of discussion).
This is absolutely true, and there's no conflict with the length dictate; if the books are short enough, the cost of reprinting a small run will still net money for the publisher; it's when they're long that it's more costly, and sometimes too costly.
So in the case of 120K words (or, I should think, 150K, because they can -- as alfreda89 pointed out, fiddle with margins, fonts, etc.), the book is easier to keep in print than a monstrous 300K words.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-09-10 09:15 am (UTC)This is absolutely true, and there's no conflict with the length dictate; if the books are short enough, the cost of reprinting a small run will still net money for the publisher; it's when they're long that it's more costly, and sometimes too costly.
So in the case of 120K words (or, I should think, 150K, because they can -- as