It felt a bit like peeking at my horoscope, which I admit I do once in awhile for a lark. I’m talking in this case about a writer’s mysterious black box- “I Write Like”. Everyone’s doing it, I thought, why not me?

So who do I write like (according to “I Write Like”)? Drum roll- envelope please. The answer is….JD Salinger.

Since he passed away, perhaps he won’t mind that I write like him. Particularly that I’m a woman who writes like a man who writes about what it’s like being a boy growing up to become a man. If that makes any sense at all.

Now I’d better go and begin scouting remote towns in New Hampshire for a cottage.

Because the frightening thing is that both JD Salinger and I have lived/worked in New York and Connecticut. But then he fled deep into New England to Cornish, New Hampshire. And I wonder if that is what “I Write Like” noticed- something in the Yankee words spiced with New York attitude. Then again maybe it’s just a mysterious black box like whatever generates the fortunes in Chinese fortune cookies.

Not long ago I posted a summary of comments on the cost of book production by Lee Child.

Here’s another source showing how little it actually costs to produce a physical paper-based book (just in terms of printing).

“Printing a 9-by-9-inch, 334-page hardcover book in China costs about 44 to 45 cents now, with another 3 cents for shipping, says Goodwin. The same book costs 65 to 68 cents to make in the U.S.” He goes on to explain that US printing obviates the need for an additional 30 days of shipping time- plus the extra 3 cents cost.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100708/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_cheap_no_more

Thus, the cheapest cost for China is 47 cents versus the most expensive cost for the US 68 cents. Will an extra 50 to 70 cents more or less  prevent anyone from buying a paper book (over say an e-book version)? Because that ‘s the real cost difference unless vendors artificially lower e-book prices by cutting pay for writers or publishers or sell at a loss to themselves. In fact, the difference is likely even less because there is still a cost for programming to develop and maintain software allowing e-books to be uploaded and viewed.

These numbers further demonstrate that most of the cost of a book is content development (ie: the writer sitting in the chair fingers to keyboard for months or years and the editor polishing the text up) plus some marketing/sales costs so that readers can find and obtain a copy of a new book and don’t have to hunt the Internet for obscure web sites to buy a poorly or non-promoted book. Thus, most costs do not change regardless of whether the book is delivered in electronic or print format.

E-books are a great option, but keep the price honest.