From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Jul 21 12:01:46 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 21 Jul 2001 19:01:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 85589 invoked from network); 21 Jul 2001 19:01:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Jul 2001 19:01:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-3.cais.net) (205.252.14.73) by mta1 with SMTP; 21 Jul 2001 19:01:45 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (1.dynamic.cais.com [207.226.56.1]) by stmpy-3.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f6LJ1gA93923; Sat, 21 Jul 2001 15:01:43 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010721143449.00b49580@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 15:05:19 -0400 To: Michal Wallace Subject: Re: [lojban] how can i help lojban? what can $ do? Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010720203736.00c7d150@127.0.0.1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 11:26 PM 07/20/2001 -0500, Michal Wallace wrote: >On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote: > > > If we want to publish books, we need lots of money (thousands of > > dollars). We still haven't paid off the loan from the refgrammar > > yet. > >Thousands? Maybe next time you should try a trade paperback. I've >lookd at http://www.morrispublishing.com/ before, and was quite >impressed. I'm not sure where my price guide went, but I seem to >recall they were pretty cheap. Order their guide.. It's free, and they >send pricing and some nice example books. I just looked. 1000 copies of a 250 page book at 8.5" x 5.5" costs $2.63 a book; 1500 copies (which was the print run for the refgrammar) is 2.45/book That is $2630 for 1000 or $3675 for 1500. And since Nick has sized the book at 9x6, he would have to trim the margins and do some more page squeezing on his tables for the slightly smaller size, and the page count might go to 300, which is $2.96/book for 1000, $2.76 for 1500. There is also a $5/page charge to go from computer disk files, which is how we would have them based on Nick's work, to camera ready copy. That is another $1500 for a 300 page book. Of course, Morris won't take any of the computer formats, only plain-text. I know of other printers that will take Postscript, if not PDF. We can prepare our own camera-ready from PDF, but that takes getting access to a linotype-quality printer, and cutting the paper down to size afterwards. There also is a charge for the cover, unless it is one of their stock covers. Probably only a couple hundred dollars, but it is still a cost. There will also be shipping costs, again probably only a few hundred dollars, but it adds up. Yes, thousands. And depending on preorders, LLG might have to sell a 300 page book at $20+ to break even reasonably soon (we took 4 years to hit 300 books with the refgrammar). Alternatively, cut the print run to 500 and we pay $3.59 for a 300 page book, and for a run of only 300, we pay $4.64. We've cut the cost down, but it is still over a thousand dollars, and with the expensive proof-making process, the print cost becomes less than the prep costs. BTW, thanks for the Morris site. Nice to have a quick on line reference to get a quick cost estimate for comparisons when I call other printers (many of whom will insist on doing a full quote in order to give me any pricing data at all). lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org