Hi. As someone with a bit of experience in the business, allow me to explain.
When Frank Amato published my book, Philadelphia on the Fly, back in 2005, I found out the physical manufacture -- the actual printing -- was done in Singapore.
Hmmm, I thought. And later I learned the reason . . . $
A book can be printed in East Asia for about a buck or two a copy, and their technology is very, very good. When you run off, say, three thousand copies, the difference between $3,000 and $15,000 (for an American printer) adds up right quick.
If there was a law that stated only American printers could be used to print books sold in the United States, then the only fishing books you would see would be the ones published by wealthy New York publishing houses, which are the same books you fine folks have been discussing (and dissing) here on this thread.
:lol:
Small presses, sadly, would become pretty much extinct within a year of such an "American printers only" law. That's just the state of the wonderful global economy -- in action for everyone but America, which invented it.
This freaks me out . . . as does this: I have been writing for twenty years, have only been able to sell one book to a publisher, and that book has not sold enough for me to pay one month's rent. Why? Because people today will spend five bucks on a cup of Starbucks candied coffee and burn through 100 dollars of gas (for the benefit of Saudi Arabia) each week, but they will not shell out $15 for an illustrated book that can sit on the shelf and be read, again and again, for generations.
Oh, the irony . . .
:lol:
