Question

A publisher for a promising new novel figures fixed costs (overhead, advances, promotion, copy editing, typesetting, and so on) at $57,000, and variable costs (printing, paper, binding, shipping) at $2.50 for each book produced. If the book is sold to distributors for $16 each, how many must be produced and sold for the publisher to break even? The publisher must produce and sell books to break even (Round to the nearest integer as needed.) Enter your answer in the answer box, 02-43

Answer 1

Let x be the number of books to be sold.

The equation can be written as,

$\begin{gathered} 57000+2.5x=16x \\ 57000=16x-2.5x \\ 57000=13.5x \\ \frac{57000}{13.5}=x \\ 4222=x \end{gathered}$

So, the number of books to be sold to break even is 4222.