by lore » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:59 am
I went to look at the survey, and all of the books you mentioned but After I Win are 801 Media books. I remember reading on the 801 site that they make one large print run of 801 books, and that's it, because it's too expensive to order a reprint.
In printing, the more books you make, the less each book ends up costing you, because even though the price goes up per book you print, the discount becomes bigger. So, for example, a printer will say they can make you 100 books for $1000 ($10/book). But if you order 200 books, it will cost $1500 ($7.50/book), and if you order 400 books, it will cost $2000 ($5/book).
So, you print 400 books to start, easy decision. But the reprint is a trickier proposition. You absolutely can't spend what you spent on the first print run, that will cost too much, but when you look at printing only 100, the price per book goes up so much, you won't be making any money on a 100-book run, and possibly not much on the 200-book run, either. Meanwhile, if you do spend more and get more books and then they don't move, you have to shoulder the cost of storing all those books. Most of the time you end up spending extra money with a reprint, whether it's through less profit on the book itself or on the storage and handling of extra books.
Now, blow my numbers up to 10,000 books or more, and you might be able to see why reprinting is a gamble. A publisher like DMP, which is not even considered a mid-size publisher and which probably works on a very tight budget, has to be certain that a reprint is going to sell well before it invests in one. DMP can't afford to invest thousands of dollars into a reprint that doesn't move, especially when those dollars can go toward the printing of new material.
While there are people interested in older books, the regular buyers are looking for the next new book. And remember, those new books are going to cost less per book to make than a reprint of an old book. It only makes sense for a small publisher to remain focused on putting out new books over reprinting older titles.
So, like I said, the 801 titles were never meant to be reprinted, and probably there hasn't been enough demand yet for After I Win to go to reprint. Filling out the survey and getting your friends to do it, too, is probably a good way to encourage the reprint to happen faster, though.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other issues around printing a book, and I've only boiled it down to the simplest denominators. But I hope this helps everyone understand this one aspect of publishing a little better.
