From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Jun 18 19:05:47 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 18 Jun 1993 23:07:32 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3260; Fri, 18 Jun 93 23:06:22 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5712; Fri, 18 Jun 93 23:07:56 EST Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 23:05:47 EDT Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: new grammar book subscriptions X-To: ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: Advance subscriptions will be relevant when we are closer to actual production. The dictionary/reference will of course come first, and sales of that first book may have significant impact on our plans for other books. But I don't know exactly what the finances will be, and since I will probably have to do the bulk of the financing of publication, I don't know what my personal finances will be. WE have been told that the standard for book publishing if you intend to make money at it is to charge 8 times the raw printing cost for a book to be primarily sold by mail order. This allows money for advertising, distributuion and losses associated with libraries and bookstroes that normally expect to get 20-55% discount on list price, and lots of review copies. But in the small print runs we are talking now (500-1000), the per book print cost for the dictionary may run $5-6 or more (much cheaper than our regukar printing by the way, since the dictionary will run over 500 pages), and this would make for a $50 book. Thus we must cut back on review copies, advertising, etc. to keep the price down, and/or get donations. Since we are talking $5-6000 for a book, we obviously need to get as many sales as possible, and if possible some advance sales. But the number of people who will even pay $25 in advance will probably not make that much of a dent on the total, unless they can expect delivery on a certain schedule. We haven't met a schedule yet, so I thus am reluctant to ask people to put an uncertain amount of money up front for a product of uncertain price to be delievered at an uncertain date. When the book is ready to go to the printers, and I have a definite price quote and a delivery date from the printer, it is more resasonable to ask for advance orders. But even so, I will still have to make wild guess predictions of sales. (The one quote I remember for example, was something like $1500 +$1500/500 copies, which means that if we really could count on selling 2000 copies instead of 1000, the printing and other costs would be reduced significantly on a per book basis. But the JL mailing list is all I can count on for definite sales, and an unknown percentage of the 1000 or so people on our waiting lists. Many will tend to wait till all the books are done before getting any of them, and that further crimps our cash flow, since we are talking 4 books at $5000 apiece perhaps.) lojbab