ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the financial aspects of marketing within the business of publishing; including how products are priced, how budgets are established and how Return on investment is calculated for marketing spend. The budget assigned to the marketing department of a publishing house will be just one of a whole series of payments that senior managers allocate. The marketing budget is likely to be subsequently divided between several categories of expenditure. Four traditional main categories exist, in decreasing order of importance: core marketing costs, plans for individual titles, budgets for ‘smaller’ titles and contingency. There are established rough percentages spent on marketing within certain areas of publishing, and these are based largely on how the materials are sold, price levels, competitor activity and ease of reaching the market. In markets where there is no retail price maintenance the sums received may be much less than their official value.
