Both sides of the Atlantic

Lynne Patrick

We got reviewed the other day in a small local newspaper which doesn’t cover a region in which one of our authors lives.

 

Such is the value of networking. Not that meeting someone in a hotel lounge when you’re enjoying a well-earned break really counts as networking, but I’ve learned that in this business you’re never fully off duty, so I always carry business cards. When I remember.

 

This isn’t a post about reviews; I just thought I’d mention it in passing.

 

Since Alison went all serious on us the other day and gave us her well-thought-out take on e-books, I decided I’d follow her lead by answering a question which seems to come up about once a week now that our titles are available on both sides of the Atlantic and so is this blog.

 

To wit:

Why do we ship copies out to the USA instead of printing over there?

 

OK. It’s easy. Small indie publishers deal in small print runs because we’re happy with sales figures which don’t even make a dent in the turnover of our larger, more prestigious and far richer competitors. Printers don’t like printing small quantities. (Cue supplementary question about print on demand. That’s a whole other post, and I think I may have written it already. For the moment, suffice to say we haven’t yet found an on-demand printer offering a unit price that makes any kind of sense.) So we print a larger quantity – still not HarperCollins or Random House large, but large enough so that the printer doesn’t tell us to go away and come back when we’ve grown up. We put them on sale over here with the help of Turnaround, the brilliant distributors without who we simply couldn’t function, and sell as many as we can. Then six months later, wonderful Dufour Editions decide how many they can sell in the USA, and arrange to have that number shipped.

 

Some titles do better here in the UK than in the States; for others it’s the other way round. If I knew the magic formula which would tell me how well a title will sell, here, there or both, I’d be a far richer woman than I am at present. Or maybe not – just better organised.

 

In these days of economic gloom, every manufacturing enterprise is grabbing on to as much work as it can, so traditional printers are actually prepared to deal in smaller quantities than before. But their overheads don’t shrink, so the unit price goes up as the number of copies comes down. If we decided to print half the run here and half in the States, and by some strange chance found two printers who were willing to go with the stupidly small quantities which would result, the odds are our total bill would finish up something like 25% higher. Which would wipe out shipping charges and then some.

 

I don’t convey information about the mechanics of being a small indie publisher nearly as entertainingly as Alison does, and I expect everybody except  Maria has glazed over or gone to make coffee by now. Maybe even Maria. But you did ask, Maria. And so does at least one other person a week.

 

So now you know.

 

We have a book launch next week. That will be a lot more interesting. There may even be celebrities!

Comments

[Maria]

My eyes are not glazed over! Well, okay maybe they are, but it's early yet and has nothing to do with your very interesting post.

From a layman reader standpoint (me) since the price from Indies is about the same as POD, it was almost surprising to learn that POD can't complete with a small print run. Of course, I participate over at www.AnthologyBuilder.com -- and my stuff has been out there (short stories) long enough to sell a few copies (8 if you must know). At any rate, you'd think that the royalties would be pouring in...

Since the largest cost is POD, that takes the bulk of the 14.95 cover price. What little is left is split between all the authors picked for an anthology--and a small amount goes to the cover artist. If a person creating the anthology picks enough stories to get to an average page length (300 or so), each author gets penny(s) per page. I've yet to score more than 20 cents per story.

My understanding is that this year Nancy Fulda (the wonderful editor that runs the joint) has found a cheaper POD printer--and so all authors may see a larger share. I'm guessing that will be in the neighborhood of Penny(s) per page.

That, and the fact that shipping charges keep going up, was the base for my question!

[Alison Janssen]

Oh gosh, Lynne, my posts aren't any more entertaining ... I just use the trick of embedding links every so often, and people follow them and find something silly and are distracted by the boring-ness of my attempts at business speak. It's all smoke and mirrors blogging! (I was an amateur magician as a kid, and have the talent show memories to prove it!)

Your experiences are very interesting to me. The difficulties of attempting to sell books on both sides of the ocean hadn't occurred to me -- but I bet, in your same situation, Ben and I would elect the same solution. Plus, imagine having to approve two sets of printer proofs for every project, blech.

We should definitely sit around drinking coffee together at some upcoming convention, if we're both there.

[Lynne Patrick]

TypePadGlad I didn't bore you to sleep, Maria! I confess the admin and organisation side of publishing isn't the part that lights my candle... I'm only in it for the books...
The POD issue is one which comes up quite often. But for indie publishers who sell through bookshops, printing costs are just one item on the agenda, and far from the largest.