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my book bought it, I’d be a happy author. And I am. Those down-
loads cost me no more than glances at the cover in a bookstore,
and the sales are healthy.
We also like to think of physical books as being inherently
countable
in a way that digital books aren’t (an irony, since com-
puters are damned good at counting things!). This is important,
because writers get paid on the basis of the number of copies of
their books that sell, so having a good count makes a difference.
And indeed, my royalty statements contain precise numbers for
copies printed, shipped, returned, and sold.
But that’s a false precision. When the printer does a run of a
book, it always runs a few extra at the start and finish of the run
to make sure that the setup is right and to account for the occa-
sional rip, drop, or spill. The actual total number of books printed
is approximately the number of books ordered, but never exactly
— if you’ve ever ordered 500 wedding invitations, chances are you
received 500-and-a-few back from the printer and that’s why.
And the numbers just get fuzzier from there. Copies are stolen.
Copies are dropped. Shipping people get the count wrong. Some
copies end up in the wrong box and go to a bookstore that didn’t
order them and isn’t invoiced for them and end up on a sale table
or in the trash. Some copies are returned as damaged. Some are
returned as unsold. Some come back to the store the next morn-
ing accompanied by a whack of buyer’s remorse. Some go to the
place where the spare sock in the dryer ends up.
The numbers on a royalty statement are actuarial, not actual.
They represent a kind of best-guess approximation of the copies
shipped, sold, returned, and so forth. Actuarial accounting works
pretty well: well enough to run the juggernaut banking, insur-
ance, and gambling industries on. It’s good enough for divvying
up the royalties paid by musical rights societies for radio airplay
and live performance. And it’s good enough for counting how
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