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New York Magazine has an online article, “The Profit Calculator”, about how various NYC businesses make money, from big names like MoMA and the Yankees, to little guys like a cabbie and a copy shop and your friendly neighborhood crystal meth dealer. From the page on Random House, we learn that only one book out of eight published is significantly profitable. A private investigator says that 30% of his business is women who suspect their men of cheating (and they’re almost always right), while 10% is men who suspect their women (and they’re almost always wrong). Macy’s loses $12-24 million a year in lost or stolen goods. And 55% of NYC’s budget goes to education and children’s, health, social, and homeless services.
That might be one out of every eight new publications.
I take it Tor does better.
There's a world of fudge in the word "significantly."
Well, "significantly" was my word, so I get the fudge. (Mmm, fudge!)
NY Mag's words were "Out of every eight books, one is very profitable, one is very unprofitable, and six either break even or lose money." Random House's words, I dunno.
I think Patrick and I know too much to be comfortable with short general statements about profitability and publishing. That particular short general statement could be worse.
I liked the analysis of taxi profitability. I've always wondered where they made their money.
our hostz r in the forumz
hoggin the discushun
...huh? What? Who?
It seems that cab drivers mostly make their money by holding onto a medallion (the price increase greatly exceeds their earnings, and the TLC is too wimpy to keep the fares unchanged until medallion prices drop to reasonable).
Women are almost always right when they suspect their husbands of cheating, and men are almost always wrong? Not a big surprise.
*looks at smoking wreckage of 20 year marriage*
Women are almost always right when they suspect their husbands of cheating, and men are almost always wrong? Not a big surprise.
If we assume a population that is generally heterosexual, it makes me wonder who the men are cheating with.
If we assume a population that is generally heterosexual, it makes me wonder who the men are cheating with.
... unmarried women, maybe?
Huh. Maybe the cheating men are cheating with the married women whose men are unsuspecting...
Another possibility, and the one I suspect -- men might not be as likely to be suspicious at the right time.
He Knew He Was Right (obTrollope).
What signal would they be reacting to, then?
Mary @ #8: Women are almost always right when they suspect their husbands of cheating, and men are almost always wrong?
Well, among the ones who hire a private detective to confirm their suspicions, which presumably skews the stats in some unknowable direction.
somewhere in their is a daniel stern twice-told tale.
failing painter working at yankee stadium steals from Macy's and uses his meth dealer as a middleman to turn the goods, then hires a PI to find out his wife is not cheating, but moonlighting as a cabby because her copy shop is quietly going out of business.
i wish he was still with us to write this one.
Having worked in a copy shop for ... erm, a long time... I followed the link to the bit on those. I don't know, I suspect the article there is seriously overestimating how much money they make -- my best guess is that the copiers cost rather more than mentioned. I can say that the one I work for has rather higher gross and lower net, at least.
Of a rather odd kind.
Kimiko, Fragano, I think you're right, but because my laptop died I don't have access to my Movable Type account. Could Jim or Avram or Patrick please zap that one? (Avram, current practice is to delete the text but keep the message open so we don't renumber the thread.)
Thanks!
Hmm, the message is gone but the spammish mailto: link is still there.
Xopher @ 21: It would be wrong to take advantage of that in a hoist-on-their-own-petard kind of way.
So very, very wrong.
Quite bad. Really, really naughty. I am absolutely not advocating such a thing. Because it would be wrong.
yay! I was right! *warm glowy feeling*
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