How many should I get printed?

[wristwister]

Hey all, as I've discussed elsewhere in these forums, I've put together my grandfather's collection of letters, photos and other memorabilia from his experience as a WW1 pilot, and I'm about ready to pull the trigger on having a book published. Just small scale, self funded. It will be 8.5"X11", paperback, about 120 pages, mostly his transcribed letters but also 20 or so pages containing color scans of photos, awards, telegrams etc. This will be strictly a presentation of the material, no commentary or added story line. If you want to get an idea of what's contained, have a look at all my other posts in these forums. You all have been a tremendous help in arranging this collection and putting this together.

I'll be having a bunch of copies published before Christmas as gifts to my family (descendents of my Grandfather). Of course, the higher the volume the lower the per-book cost, so I'm wondering if I should get extra copies printed up with the idea of selling them to help recoup some costs? I don't see this as a book that would have any kind of mass appeal, but perhaps some WW1 aviation nuts might be interested.

I'm looking for feedback on this, what are your thoughts on selling these for, say, ~$20 each? I don't have time for any kind of marketing, so sales would be via this forum and word of mouth for now. How many do you think would sell in the near term? A few? A dozen? More? I can always have more printed up if the demand is there, but again I'm looking to maximize this first printing without being left with boxes of books in my garage.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by wristwister

...about 120 pages, mostly his transcribed letters but also 20 or so pages containing color scans of photos, ... ~$20 each? ...

wristwister,
i wish you sincere best of luck with self-publishing your grandfather's archives. if you're able to accomplish this goal, please PM me the name of your printer.

[Chock]

Have you considered 'print on demand' options? Check out here:

Self Publishing - Lulu.com

Al

[wristwister]

Chock, that's exactly the route I'm going.

AAC, have you looked into the plethora of on-line publishers available? Chock mentions Lulu, which looks pretty good. In my case, I need a publisher that can do mostly B&W with a few color pages without the premium of paying for a full color book. Lulu can't do that, and niether can several others. However, instantpublisher.com can do this (I think, I'm confirming with them). In my case, less than 50 books, paperback, perfect-bound, color glossy cover, will come to less that $20 per book, total cost. This seems to be pretty typical pricing with these on-line publishers.

If anyone out there has experience with these types of publishers, good or bad, I'm all ears!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

wristwister,
no, haven't. i need a good publisher. i won't consider self-publishing. unless i win the lottery.

[Blackclaw]

Lulu works fine if you want to be your own publisher. And if you buy into their distribution package, your books go on Amazon where they may actually get seen by someone looking for World War One books.

However, Amazon has so many books, it's hard for an individual book to stand out.

If you can find a distributor that can get your book to actually sit on book shelves in stores, you might have better sales. But getting a distributor to be interested in a self published book is difficult. And if you do succeed in that, you end up paying for the initial book run. That can be good if you get a lot of orders, but expensive since you have to pay the printing cost up front and then wait a few months for the distributor to pay for the books they've distributed. The store gets a huge discount, the distributor gets a cut, and what's left goes to you, so you have to do the math right or you can end up losing money for every book sold. Lulu's pricing is unlikely to be competitive enough for this.

Though frustrating to try and sell your book to a publisher, that's the traditional method for authors. You get paid from the publisher and they handle the costs of printing and shipping and getting the book on shelves. If you think your book is good enough, you might try that route first. It can take a year or more to find a publisher and there's a big "if" there.

If finding a publisher isn't going anywhere or you don't want to wade through rejections, self-publishing through Lulu isn't a bad idea. However once you do this, other publishers are extremely unlikely to ever pick up the book. But they aren't that likely to pick it up in the first place anyway. If you go through Lulu and buy a distribution package, odds are you will sell less than 100 books. But you will have sold some books! If you are lucky, you'll cover the cost of Lulu's distribution package. You can save some money and not get the distribution package, but you'll have to do some self-promotion. And with the distribution package, it's always nice to be able to tell folks to just look your book up on Amazon, although you earn a lot more when folks buy your book directly through Lulu. And there's always the chance that it can grab enough people's interest to spread and become a major seller. The top Lulu books have sold in the tens of thousands. But don't count on that happening.

Oh, and you should note that the Publishing world is its own unique universe. It's a universe that will sooner or later piss you off. And occassionally it will make you go WTF? For example, there was a special edition of my book on sale at Amazon for a while. That was interesting as I never wrote a special edition...

Anyway, it sounds like you just want to get the book to family and friends and for that I'd say Lulu is the way to go.

Sorry about being long winded with stuff that probably doesn't concern you. Publishing flashbacks...

[wristwister]

Thnks for the input Blackclaw. Points all well taken.

A little background: I did initially approach "real" publishers about this project. One local publisher was captivated by the idea, and we went back and forth for the better part of a year on how they might publish/distribute such a book. In the end we both learned something: my grandfather's collection is by no means unique, and there's STACKS of books out there very similar to mine, in most cases with far more fascinating adventures and characters that my Grandfather. Despite the publisher lining me up with several well known authors, historians and biographers, none of us could come up with a suitable "hook" for this project that would generate mass appeal. So the project with this particular publisher sort of fizzled, although I'm still always noodling on what that "hook" might be and I've got some ideas. And a project of that magnatude may yet happen some day ... but not today. For now, I just want to get something out for family/descendants, and possibly to share with the very small population of WW1 aviation nuts who might actually give a rip about what Grandpa did.

[wristwister]

Originally Posted by AAC Cadet Leader

wristwister,
no, haven't. i need a good publisher. i won't consider self-publishing. unless i win the lottery.

Wouldn't have to be much of a lottery, we're only talking a few hundred bucks for an initial printing of 25 or so books ... depending of course on how big, how much color etc. Although Blackclaw does make a good point of potentially hampering your chances with a real publisher by going the self-publish route.

[ONEALM]

For now, I just want to get something out for family/descendants, and possibly to share with the very small population of WW1 aviation nuts who might actually give a rip about what Grandpa did.

I care.... I think the story is typical one, but I'd love to see similar volumes about all the guys who served with the French or Brits - similar stories or not, they'd all be interesting reading.

-Mike

[stephen]

As the late Neal O'Connor proved with his brilliant series of books on German aviation awards, self publishing IS "real" publishing.

If I had self published THE STAND, I'd have actually done very well on it. Of course, I had no way of knowing that the book would succeed like this, so hindsight is 20/20. Going with an outside publisher definitely hedges your risk, but it also kills your profit margin. If the book fails, you'll be thankful you didn't self publish. If it succeeds, you'll kick yourself for not releasing it privately.

I think you should call Alan Roesler. He just started his own WWI aviation publishing firm and is now set to release his second title. Just spoke with him in San Antonio last week. I bet he could offer you some great ideas on what to do with your project and perhaps broaden your scope of possibilities considerably.

Best of luck!