Blatant marketing questions

[kinzel]

Wearing the SRM Publisher chapeau I say to you:

I'm in touch with the printer who did the first printing of Liaden
Universe Companion #1 ... and we're trying to figure out what we need to do in terms of reprints.

Now, as you may know, we essentially sold out of the hardcover -- we kept a few for our use, and held a reserve of a few in case shipped orders got lost or damaged.

I figure damaged books should have been reported by now, so we have 5(five) copies of the hardcover on hand (hint, let me know off list if you need one)... and we have around 62 of the trade soft covers here (some stores also have stock, I think/hope as Christmas closes in on us...).

Questions:

One: do you think there's need for more Liaden Universe Companion #1 in hardcover -- that is, would you personally be interested in having them be generally available again; would you want one, tell people they were available, give one or more as gifts, try to convince your local library to get one, tell your bookseller? This is at the $24.95 or $25.95 price point ... and all we'd need to do is order them and (and pay in advance...sigh) ...and wait 60-90 days or so to get them.


Two: If you knew we had more Liaden Universe Companion #1 in trade
softcover (at $15.95) would you want one, tell people they were
available, give one or more as gifts, try to convince your local
library to get one, tell your bookseller? Again, all we'd need to do is order them (and pay in advance....) and wait 60-90 days or so to get them.

Three: our local printer -- the place that did Gunshy -- has bought
new equipment and thinks he can do a relatively short run of a mass
market-sized book for us. In fact, the owner would *like* us to try so he can get experience. This would require us to reset and reformat the entire book, including artwork. The problem is that since we're dealing with a low-volume print run, the price might be as much as $8.95 or $9.95 for a mass market sized book (with full color cover, I think). Would you be at all in favor of this option?

Four: if we had a short run mass market option should we skip
reprinting the hardcover?

Five: is this worth worrying anyone about? Should we just let the
book go out of print?

Comments

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

Hard question - I know I would love to have a copy but money is getting in the way. So if it were available in a few months when I could actually have the cash I'd buy it. But am I enough to do a print run for? Nope. I'd hate to see it go out of print though.

[kimuro.livejournal.com]

What is contained in the companion?

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in mass market. (And $8.95 isn't so bad, given that many first run novels are up to $7.99 these days.) I'd be interested in trade edition if the lower price point option weren't available.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

Shew, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who is unfamiliar with this. I think we have most of your other stuff (Liaden), but we do not have this. In general I'm not crazy about companion books. I like full stories better.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I'd vote for the mass market option -- because that gets it under $10, which is my break point. Above that, I ask for books as gifts, as I don't feel right spending so much on a single book.

As long as there are trades, and possibly mass markets, I don't think you need to reprint the hardcovers.

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

From the SRM Catalong (http://www.korval.com/srmcat2.htm)

One dozen short stories, including all stories from the first 5 Liaden Universe® chapbooks!

Includes:
Where the Goddess Sends
A Choice of Weapons
Moonphase
To Cut An Edge
King of the Cats
A Spell for the Lost
A Day at the Races
Breath's Duty
The Wine of Memory
Certain Symmetry
Pilot of Korval
Balance of Trade

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

ALL of them were previously released in the chapbooks? Then I wouldn't need the omnibus.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I'd say differently - go for the mass market and the hardback. Hardback is the nice, upmarket, durable option. Mass market is for the people who can't afford otherwise, and for tempting people who dither whether they should shell out or not. Trade paperbacks have none of the advantages of either format - they're not durable or giving off that 'wow, what a book' feeling; nor are they cheap and easy to carry around (and readable in the bath).
If you can sell the hardcovers - and it seems you can - I'd reprint. Particularly if you are bringing out vol 2, and people will want #1 to got with it.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

We have all the chapbooks. Or at least, I think we do. DH keeps track of all that stuff:) I'm the person who had one of the Liaden books in the house for liek 3 years before I realized I had not read it yet. I am very disorganized. Luckily, dh and I have similar fiction tastes, so I just read what he gets :)

[ixixlix.livejournal.com]

One: Balance of Trade in Ace mmpb is going to bring a few more Liaden converts to the fold. A short run will probably pay off in the long run, but is that worth it? I don't know.

Two: Before I read item three, I thought "Cool! A tpb so I don't have to carry around my hardback when I want to re-read (which I did just last week). But then I read Three.

Three: Super cool! I'd buy a mmpb so I could carry it in my purse. I have hardbacks of all the Meisha Merlin editions to read in comfort, but I've purchased the Ace mmpbs to bash around in the purse. I'd love to have one!

Four: Probably.

Five: No, no, a thousand times No. Sometimes I re-read just the Lute and Moonhawk stories, cuz I love Lute. Sometimes I re-read the whole thing - the skimmer race, the water-balloon fight, PatRin balancing for the dead man....Good stories, well told.

Lauren in Los Angeles

[mamabeast.livejournal.com]

I'd say skip the HB reprint and do either another trade or the mass market......... I wante one and havent gotten it yet as i have no chapbooks and was going to hint for christmas to certain people that i'd like one

[baisleac.livejournal.com]

1. - I can't say if there's a need; however, I would definately be interested personally... and know a few others who might be interested as well.

2. - Yes. Yes. and Yes.

3. I'm personally a hardcover lover, but you would probably get more interest in a mass market-sized.

4. No, please.

5. Definately worth worrying about; please don't let it go out of print.

Kate in L.A.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, if you let it go out of print, our (only-slightly-used) copy goes up in collectable value...

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

I'm not impressed with the price point for the mmpb. This is yet another reason I don't buy mmpb for my own use.

Given the upcoming releases from Ace, I see value in keeping the companion in print (and all the more so if you go ahead with plans for volume #2).

Having said that, I think you need to put time in on the unmentioned point #6, which is where your work is going to land in the ebook world. LUC1 should exist as an ebook, and sonner rather than later. I'm just saying.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Say all you want, we talk about e-books when we have a contract.

[oberon.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wouldn't buy LUC1 for anyone as an entry-level book to the series, which is where most gifts go, I think there's a lot of depth lost in the subtext there just isn't room for in a short story. So while I'd not like to see it go out of print, I'd honestly rather see a LUC #2 omnibus for the REST of the chapbooks I don't have.

I guess my vote's on the low-cost option, mmpb, to keep it in print.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

I'd like to have this either in hb or trade, personally. I don't have any of the chapbooks, so all of these stories are new to me.

[sigh] print-on-demand becomes so much more attractive at times like these...

Would mmpb really keep this in print, though? If it went to bookstores, wouldn't it find itself stripped in two weeks?

(I realize this is no help at all.)

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Out of print!? Aiiieeeee!

[(Anonymous)]

NOT go out of print. YES softcover. College student no money -> not hardcover here, much sorry.

estrelladsax

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

But aren't most e-book contracts on the basis of 'part of the cover price' anyway? So the question is really about marketing platforms; and I would have thought that most of _that_ does not come from a publisher's catalogue, but from your side.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Most ebook contracts are deplorable. Really. We won't sign most of them, nor would our agent encourage us to.

Now, AFAIK, ebook contracts *often* permit the publisher to re-package "content" at will and whim. When I say "often", that's based on the contracts that have been presented to me by various publishers and editors in the last 10 years or so.

In any case, this discussion is not about vaporware ebooks, but about what SRM Publisher should do to keep material in print within the next few months. When we've got a decent ebook contract, it will be with an outside publisher, and we'll let folks know.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Good question about stripping books -- thanks for your concern! ...

but if we distribute our own mmpb... it's a size for us, not a statement that someone would be distributing to all the stores in the world. I'd expect it to go to the 5 or 10 reliable sf/genre shops, a few convention dealers, and be sold through our website, all with the understanding that we don't take back stripped books. So we'd be printing a few hundred, which is why the price looks like it would need to be on the high side -- we have to leave room for the booksellers to make a reasonable return, and us too.

The problem with ordinary print on demand is pricing -- if the book costs $5.77 to produce then it needs to wholesale at some reasonable price above that -- and if a book wholesales at $8 it can't sell for $8.95. A book selling for 8.95 would wholesale at $5.37 ... and thus would need to cost no more than $2.70 per to print (given that art costs, and some other stuff are also involved) to make for a reasonable return. If the price is to hit the $7.95 price point I'm seeing bandied about (as too expensive!) the wholesale would be $4.77 and the printing price would have to be on the order of $2.39. When big companies produce 20,000 mmpb they get a price per in the $1 or less range I'd guess.

Sigh, this is probably more than you were asking....

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

No, actually, this is really interesting!

If you're selling it yourself, why is the gap between wholesale and retail so high? I'm assuming that you don't have a lot of the overhead costs that a store has. The genre shops will, of course, and the convention dealers will as well.

(I'm thinking out loud here, and please bear in mind I don't have anything like your experience in this area so there are things I'm overlooking--and would appreciate your pointing out to me!) Okay, you have production costs; that's your $2.70 (or is printing separate from production? Yes, it must be, so that's 2.70 plus 2.39) so we're up to $5.09. Shipping and storage (which, if it's true POD, shouldn't be much) and postage, and the time cost of bookkeeping--how much is that? How much of a profit margin per book do you consider acceptable?

This is informative not only as an alternative way to sell books (how do you advertise?) but a survival strategy as well.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

The gap between wholesale and retail is -- wait for it -- the way things have been done for years and years. Let's call it industry standard.

In general wholesale is 60% of retail, breaks below that go to distributors. Which is to say that if I put a retail price of $10 on a book, the dealer is going to expect to pay $6. If I put a price of $6, the dealer will expect to pay $3.60. I have to price that way because I need bookstores and dealers to make their profit and I need bookstores in order to reach the market. I can't sell to bookstores at my cost. I can't sell my books online cheaper than the retail price (well, I do sales from time to time, but not on a regular basis) if I'm going to keep the retailers on my side -- which I need to do since retailers sell books even if I'm home getting my mouth rebuilt (like this year) and unable to hand sell in person. Since SRM pays our health insurance, we need it to work.

My overhead is much the same as a retail store: I pay myself a salary and cover health insurance and other business-type insurance, I pay for phone, internet, computers, and printing. We have an outside accountant. We do a lot of printing besides the books since we send flyers to lots of conventions... right now I think I have around 30 reams of paper in house not including some specialty papers. We advertise on websites -- I generally do an ad on Locus online at least once a year, and SRM pays for our visits to conventions that aren't covered by being a GoH or special guest. I sometimes buy ads in convention program books, we also donate books to convention charity auctions. And we pay our authors a small advance and royalties.

Where many small press/self-published people go wrong - and why they go broke at publishing after a few years -- is that they think that if they knock a dollar off the price, they'll sell more books. But the dealers need their profits, too, and for limited audience books (which our chapbooks and other books are, to some extent) the dealers have got to be able to know they'll cover the cost of that corner of the table at a convention, and that it'll be worth them hauling my books instead of three more Terry Pratchett books. So pricing a book too low means that dealers won't carry them -- or won't take you seriously.

We've been doing this as SRM for eleven years now. Sometimes things are real tight and sometimes the books don't sell as fast as we think they ought. Like most publishers, not all of our books ever turn a profit. Some of the books take three years to turn a profit...and we can't know in advance which ones will pay off in six months and which in sixteen months. Hence this poll, to see if we can at least make an educated guess. If we guess wrong. we won't be at NASFIC. If we guess right, we'll even be able to have a meal in a nice restaurant.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Huh. I can see I've been looking at this too narrowly.

I am only an egg. (Or possibly a Grasshopper.)

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Off topic, I'm afraid, but if I order "Allies" and another book, already in print, can I have you ship them together? It just seems like it save you and me money and maybe a bit of tree, as well. I can wait for the other chapbook, so that's no problem.