Subject: Re: [lojban] how can i help lojban? what can $ do?

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 07:18:15 -0400

At 10:34 PM 07/21/2001 -0600, Jay Kominek wrote:
>On Sun, 22 Jul 2001, Michal Wallace wrote:
> > There is one other option I know of that you might be interested
> > in.. It's a small subsidiary/spinoff/something of random house called
> > xlibris ( http://www.xlibris.com/ ) If I read their faq right, they
> > basically handle the sales, fill and ship orders, and split the
> > royalties with you. They have some kind of print-on-demand technology
> > so you never have to buy boxes of books. The basic service is
> > $200. That's all I know about them, but it might be worth a look.
>
>Xlibris looks pretty good. The main thing likely to be a problem is that
>they limit you to a very small number of tables. Looks like maybe 10
>tables for the most expensive service.
>
>There are a lot of features that seem as though they could be pretty
>helpful. ISBN/LOC numbers, distribution via online booksellers, etc, and
>you can get trade paperback _and_ hardcover copies.
>
>Paperbacks look to be $16, and hardcover books are $25, I can't find
>anything about page counts, though. (Though for a $16 paperback, they
>could easily print a few thousand pages.)
>
>Oh, and those prices include royalties which are sent to the author.

The royalties are in the amounts typical for publishers. In other words, 
xlibris is making most of the money on the books. There is no real role 
for LLG in the process at all, unless the author assigns royalties to us, 
in which case we make a couple dollars a book, which is not enough for us 
to stay in business.

>Importantly, the agreement with Xlibris is non-exclusive, allowing you to
>do whatever else you want with the book.

Yes and no. The existence of an xlibris version means that we won't sell 
as many books any other way, and sales volume is critical to anything we do.

If LLG cannot continue to operate as a viable business for some reason, 
then xlibris may be a way to keep Lojban books available. Similarly it is 
a forum for publishing if we ever have to refuse an author who chooses 
instead to proceed on his/her own. Hopefully neither will never happen.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
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