Prism

[David A. Riley]

"... and a number of their titles are now available as ebooks via Tesco's online. Getting the books into shops is, of course, an advantage but i'm sure Derek mentioned on here that, like the small presses, they do the bulk of their trade via Amazon?

idea."

Interesting if that's accurate.

Elsewhere, I think it was Allyson Bird, mentioned that Screaming Dreams did consider Amazon once but they wanted to cream off something like 57% of the purchase price. Of course, if you can afford to print enough and keep your printing costs per copy down to a minimum, you can still aford to sell them cheap and make a profit. Still a risk, of course, like everything else in business, but at least, unlike magazines, books don't date, and if you can wait long enough...

I think that in many ways our small presses have fallen into the trap of trying to make beautiful books, with top rate paper quality and individually dazzling covers. I know from my own past experience that artists don't come cheap and, unlike writers, expect to get paid a decent amount. I'm sure that the tendency to have oversized paperbacks must add to the cost, though that may be something that can't be avoided with POD publishing. Likewise the paper quality, which could be lessened. Producing smaller books means cheaper packaging for despatching, not to mention much smaller postage costs. It all adds up.

Perhaps there's the core of a good idea there.

[David A. Riley]

Anyway, if nothing else, all this talk about Wordsworth has prompted me finally to send in an order to Amazon for a copy of the Oliver Onions collection. Free postage too.

[dem]

Just checked, and every book on the Wordsworth Editions site has a direct link to the corresponding pages on Amazon and Bibliophile, but, of course they're likely putting out their titles in far greater quantities than Screaming Dreams (who, from what i've seen, put together very attractive, affordable books) and perhaps they've a better deal.

Aug 19, 2010 11:08:47 GMT David A. Riley said:

I think that in many ways our small presses have fallen into the trap of trying to make beautiful books, with top rate paper quality and individually dazzling covers. I know from my own past experience that artists don't come cheap and, unlike writers, expect to get paid a decent amount. I'm sure that the tendency to have oversized paperbacks must add to the cost, though that may be something that can't be avoided with POD publishing. Likewise the paper quality, which could be lessened. Producing smaller books means cheaper packaging for despatching, not to mention much smaller postage costs. It all adds up.

I'm sure Dr. Terror has mentioned that, page count apart, you're limited to a standard size with POD. What gets me is all this "deluxe" edition malarkey (hello, P.S.) designed exclusively for the lucrative "people who post photo's of themselves standing before their enormous bookcase full of overpriced, unread but "it's a LIMITED EDITION"!" market. Then there's the "the first 100 copies come with coloured endpapers and silk ribbon" mirth-inducer: Yeah? Thank God you told me! Best write my cheque now as I wouldn't wanna miss out on that! Seriously, who on earth needs all that nonsense? It's only a horror story, not the Magna Carta!

i'm having one of my turns, aren't i?

[marksamuels]

I'm usually a bit bewildered by super-duper-deluxe editions too. But I suppose that type of collector is out there, and it's a way for the publisher to make a guaranteed income and number of sales. Not that most authors sign up with a publisher for the super-duper-deluxe edition; I'm sure they'd rather the text reached as wide a readership as possible.

I dealt with David Stuart Davies at Wordsworth. It was Mark Valentine who put me onto him! Anyway, one should never grumble about a publisher's rejection, after all it's only a business decision. I do wish that, in the end, I'd got back the copies of three of my books I sent him though... I was well out of pocket!

Mark S.

[David A. Riley]

It could have something to do with the numbers of copies available, perhaps. I really don't know.

Although Screaming Dreams is one of the more affordable small presses, they're still expensive compared to the Wordsworth editions.

It would, of course, take a great act of faith to put forward the kind of money needed to get several thousand copies of a collection printed standard sized, even though they would be much cheaper per copy. I have never enquired what that would work out at, although the price would be considerably less than what even SD pays per copy. When you are only getting a hundred or so printed at a time, that's never going to be economic, especially at trade paperback size. The worst deal of all, of course, is POD. It's attractiveness is the fact that you only need to print off as many copies as you need at a time, however small. That's its only attractiveness, though. Cost-wise it's a bitch.

If I was in the position I was back in 1995, where I had £12,000 to invest in publishing, I would be tempted to have a go. At least I wouldn't burn my fingers quite so badly as I did with a magazine, especially with a bi-monthly schedule and returns still pouring in from the first issue well after the third was out.

I may do some enquiries into costs. It could be interesting. The way forward would be to reduce all costs to a minimum. Standard printer (not POD or any of that stuff). Cheap as chips cover art. Bog standard paper. Mass market paperback size. And print runs from 1k to 5k to see what kind of sliding scale there is.

[dem]

Aug 19, 2010 12:44:55 GMT David A. Riley said:

The way forward would be to reduce all costs to a minimum. Standard printer (not POD or any of that stuff). Cheap as chips cover art. Bog standard paper. Mass market paperback size. And print runs from 1k to 5k to see what kind of sliding scale there is.

I love it! not sure i agree with the "cheap as chips cover art" because, as has surely been proved on here and sites like Jim Things, some of us are quite happy to pick up a book purely on the strength of its great or rotten cover, but the rest is so 'return of the 'seventies pulp paperback' it's beautiful.

apologies for hijacking the Prism thread, though.

[David A. Riley]

I don't mind the thread being hijacked. It's an interesting subject, at least to me.

Perhaps I should elaborate on the covers. When I say cheap as chips, I'm thinking of whatever suitable artwork can be bought for as little as possible. I certainly wouldn't see any sense in paying a lot for it. Though I do take your point about a cover selling a book. It certainly does. Poor cover art can quite effectively put people off buying it. I've felt the same reluctance myself on occasion.

Yes, I like your comment about going back to the seventies. That's probably what we need.

[Craig Herbertson]

The Prism covers are superb David. You seem to be putting the same professionalism and Verve into this as Beyond.

I've always had the feeling that one has to be dead to be in Wordsworth. Not just terms of the obvious fact that you have to wait for that 70 year gap, nor the cheapness of publication, but also in terms of being some kind of institution.

While we know and love our own authors in the modern genre and regard some as veritable institutions ,Wordsworth is essentially mainstream and almost by definition is introducing authors who are either vaguely known by the public or defined by being Gothic or Victorian or the like which are also terms vaguely known.

I don't want to sound too pessimistic. because there have been some very good ideas flung around here and some might work, but I do get the feeling that Mark, David and others will get in Wordsworth but it may well be a hundred years hence.

[David A. Riley]

"I don't want to sound too pessimistic. because there have been some very good ideas flung around here and some might work, but I do get the feeling that Mark, David and others will get in Wordsworth but it may well be a hundred years hence."

If my plans go according to plan it will take far longer in my case, but I can say no more. ;D

But you're right, of course, that has basically been their very successful blueprint, apart from the inclusion of a few stories in some anthologies.

My interest lies in how someone could mimic them in their production values and print runs for one-author story collections yet use still living writers provided payment rates were much reduced - something, I know, that would go against the grain with the HWA. On the other hand, many writers would never see their short story collections published any other way in those kinds of numbers.

The fact is that unless you are a best selling writer these days, the only way you can get a short story collection published is through the small press in very small numbers - ie 500 at the most, but usually far fewer. This has a lot to do with availability and book pricing. Wordsworth are able to keep their book prices down to amazing levels. The Oliver Onions collection, for example, is available from Amazon with free UK shipping for £2.84!

[David A. Riley]

It strikes me, too, that for economic reasons any print publications should perhaps also be accompanied by an ebook version. I notice that Wordsworth have these available too.

[Craig Herbertson]

In the music business two of my distributors tell me that it takes approximately five years to recover the money from pressing a CD. The normal press run is between 1000 and 2000 for a relatively unknown artist. I released 'Hearts of Glory' which was aired live to twenty thousand football fans way back in 2004, promoted and sold at every gig and available for downloads. The distributor still has copies left. The other CD's on the back of some small success have both sold out on a 1000 copies in a couple of years. Neither has made the money back though, and I probably make about 4 euros from a 15 euro CD.

This is operating outside the mainstream where a promoter calculated that there were only 250 fans of folk music in Dortmund, a town about as large as Manchester.

On the other hand playing regularly to audiences of about 2,000 in a Mainstream show, Celtic Life, which was well advertised on TV it was possible to bang out large amounts of merchandise and I managed for the latter part of the show to get out a privately produced CD which made more than the rest put together.

What defines it for most people is Television. Most hit songs are hits because of the TV. Caledonia, the most famed recent song in Scottish folk, was a TV advert. The Dark Island, probably one of the most famed tunes was used as the theme for a radio play in the 1950s. These songs rather than others become the ones that people want to buy and the reason is - its a 'good enough' song - heard a lot of times from an authoritative source.

I think its the same in the writing business. Essentially one sells most books live. You require many venues and many people at them. Couple that with an authoritative gatekeeper, usually television, but perhaps newspapers in our case (and increasingly the internet) and you have a chance of recouping some cash.

Mainstream publishers are obviously there to make money whereas we want money but its not our main objective. If any of us were mercenary we'd be working in the City.

Sorry for my predictable musical analogies and general rambling - I've been up since six and had too much coffee

[jamesdoig]

I imagine choosing a title for publication must be the product of a careful business decision. Derek mentioned, and I hope I'm not misquoting, that in recent times some Wordsworth titles haven't sold so well. There must come a time when you've exhausted the choicest crop of quality authors and titles and you struggle to sell the 2nd or 3rd tier stuff. I imagine Lovecraft, M.R. James, Robert E. Howard, le Fanu, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Kipling do all right - they always have - but it must be difficult to sell 1000s of copies of Lettice Galbraith, R. Murray Gilchrist and Amyas Northcote, as desirable as they may be to aficionados and fans. Even the specialty presses struggle to flog 500 or even 200 copies of long-dead authors who on the face of it look worthwhile reprinting - a saturation point is easily reached.

And the digitisation of public domain material must make it tough to sell print copies of out-of-copyright material - many of the texts are freely available and the only value-add is a decent intro or critical apparatus. I know a few researchers/editors who are struggling to sell collections by interesting authors, or have sold them and seen them published, but haven't received a brass razoo.

[dem]

Aug 20, 2010 5:17:41 GMT David A. Riley said:

My interest lies in how someone could mimic them in their production values and print runs for one-author story collections yet use still living writers provided payment rates were much reduced - something, I know, that would go against the grain with the HWA. On the other hand, many writers would never see their short story collections published any other way in those kinds of numbers.

i'd feel terrible if any of this comes across as me putting down the small presses, because i've a huge amount of admiration for ANYONE who creates anything, but rightly or wrongly, i honestly believe that for all the great work they do, unfortunately, by their very nature, they've also made it all seem so elitist. Fine for people who like the idea of being part of an elite, not so great for authors who'd actually like their work to be known to as wide a public as possible. The number of our contributors who've mentioned first being exposed to the genre and developing a love for it through their dad's (or mum's!) ropey paperback collection tells its own story. Of course, it's easy to look back with rose-tinted spectacles, but the 'seventies was surely a better time to be involved in the book industry? you'd still find racks of the latest paperbacks in the local newsagents and outside every underground station. Woolworths was a going concern with it's impossibly alluring bargain bin. The libraries really were libraries and not some wretched jumped-up aerobics class-wannabe Blockbuster Video clones. There were no DVD's, home computers, blah blah to distract. Would those same mums and dads now have a stash of Ex-Occidente publications hanging around for the kids to discover? Its not impossible, but it sure wouldn't be in anything like the same numbers, and, quite frankly, i don't know any one of my parents' generation who would have blithely splashed out £100 for a return of two books no matter how lavishly packaged.

Aug 20, 2010 5:17:41 GMT David A. Riley said:

Wordsworth are able to keep their book prices down to amazing levels. The Oliver Onions collection, for example, is available from Amazon with free UK shipping for £2.84!

10 Rothmans - £3.25
A thousand-pages plus of Varney The Vampyre - £2.99 (£2.50 where i get mine). Puts it all in perspective, really.

Aug 20, 2010 6:01:28 GMT Craig Herbertson said:

Sorry for my predictable musical analogies and general rambling - I've been up since six and had too much coffee

on the contrary, craig, i thought that was a great post.

[David A. Riley]

Aug 20, 2010 6:13:39 GMT jamesdoig said:

I imagine choosing a title for publication must be the product of a careful business decision. Derek mentioned, and I hope I'm not misquoting, that in recent times some Wordsworth titles haven't sold so well. There must come a time when you've exhausted the choicest crop of quality authors and titles and you struggle to sell the 2nd or 3rd tier stuff. I imagine Lovecraft, M.R. James, Robert E. Howard, le Fanu, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Kipling do all right - they always have - but it must be difficult to sell 1000s of copies of Lettice Galbraith, R. Murray Gilchrist and Amyas Northcote, as desirable as they may be to aficionados and fans. Even the specialty presses struggle to flog 500 or even 200 copies of long-dead authors who on the face of it look worthwhile reprinting - a saturation point is easily reached.

And the digitisation of public domain material must make it tough to sell print copies of out-of-copyright material - many of the texts are freely available and the only value-add is a decent intro or critical apparatus. I know a few researchers/editors who are struggling to sell collections by interesting authors, or have sold them and seen them published, but haven't received a brass razoo.

Which is why I think there are grounds to believe that a company based on this model, but selling up and coming newer writers whose names can be promoted online and elsewhere, but offering otherwise very small financial returns for the author (who would otherwise never even get their collection published, certainly in large numbers, lets be honest) might have a chance.

On the plus side for the writer, besides getting published and a higher profile, they could very possibly, even on low royalty percentages, end up with more than they would through traditional small presses.

Going on from others' comments, including Craig, about slow sales returns, this would have to be taken into account of course. The money spent on any publication would have to be regarded as shelved for quite some time. The important issue is how much it would cost to put out a collection of 2 or 3 thousand copies (or whatever) of a particular writer, taking into consideration all the cost cutting that could be involved.

Obviously it would be important to choose writers whose work could be attractive to as wide a range of the buying public as possible, with quality work that is readable and interesting.

There are a lot of things to weigh up on this.

I am going to make some enquiries into printing costs. If anyone has some already or some useful contacts I'd appreciate it.

[David A. Riley]

Dem wrote: "Would those same mums and dads now have a stash of Ex-Occidente publications hanging around for the kids to discover? Its not impossible, but it sure wouldn't be in anything like the same numbers, and, quite frankly, i don't know any one of my parents' generation who would have blithely splashed out £100 for a return of two books no matter how lavishly packaged."

That's so true, it's tragic. I recently had a story bought by an American editor for a mass market zombie paperback due from Random House next year. The story was originally published by DAW Books and Sphere Books in 1971, both mass market. How likely is it that this editor would have known about this story if it had only appeared in a small press anthology of two to three hundred copies? Nearly forty years on, I doubt it would have stood a snowball's chance in hell.

I agree with you that the small presses do a remarkable and essential job. Without them there would be far fewer markets available and a lot of stuff would never have been published at all. In these days when mass market publishers have an aversion to horror and to anthologies and single-author collections in general, the small press is invaluable. But I do think it's perhaps time for someone to take a different approach, especially as more and more books are being sold online. It may be a risk - in fact, to be blunt, it is a risk - but a calculated one. Wordsworth have shown that standard-sized mass market paperbacks can be sold for remarkably low prices. It's books of this sort that need marketing now.