An Editor's Opinion

[popmuze]

I asked this question over on the POD area and got one answer. Surely there must be other experts lurking here, especially editors.
I'm thinking of turning to POD to exploit the paperback rights on a book I already have out in hardback in the reference market through a regular publisher. I have retained trade rights for myself, but have yet to get an agent interested in shopping them. Probably not enough money in it.

So would this be a good project to go to POD? It's already got good reviews and a presence at Amazon. But instead of selling for $125, I could price it at $30 or $35 through lulu.

Or am I just asking for trouble

[CaoPaux]

I presume you've already approached academic presses?

[popmuze]

I don't want to step on the toes of the hardcover publisher, which specializes in reference books and text books.

This is a reference book, but I think it's got good crossover appeal, since it's about popular music. So I figured a $30 edition might sell to the average music fan.

[Gillhoughly]

In fiction the usual pattern is hardcover for a year, then release either trade or mass-market paperback or do both (trade for a year, then PB).

For your genre, I'm not sure.

You need to read your contract to see if there is any mention of this point.

Then you contact the publisher and ask if they have plans for a paperback edition. If so, then you back off.

If the paperback/trade rights are yours, then you can POD the book, but 30.00 a pop seems very steep to me. I might pay that much for HC, but never a paperback, however good the reviews.

Reference books are physically different from regular books (Better bindings, paper, etc.) which is why they cost more. They have to last. The ref. book price compared to a PB price (depending on the page count) is going to have a much wider difference.

Bottom line--it's better to make fast quarters than slow dollars. Rethink your POD price before taking the plunge.

[popmuze]

Here's where it gets tricky. At approximately 700 pages, there's a limit to how low I can go without losing money on each book (and hoping to make it up in volume).
Don't you think, for a 700 page book, $25 to $30 is reasonable? I've seen such books in my bookstore, Paul Zollo's book on songwriter's for instance, or the Mojo Best 1000 Record Albums.

[Namatu]

$30 does seem reasonable for a 700-page book.

I don't think you'd be stepping on any toes to approach an academic press for a paperback version unless the target market is exactly the same. (I come from the world of reference publishing so I'm not that up on academic presses but their books aren't just marketed to academia, correct?) It sounds like you'd be targeting a general audience in the mass market rather than the libraries and universities that are the reference publisher's focus.

[Lauri B]

Popmuze, do you have a venue for selling the book? Does the hc publisher have the paperback rights? If not, you can probably sell them to someone else and save yourself the hassle of dealing with selling the book on your own.

[popmuze]

Popmuze, do you have a venue for selling the book? Does the hc publisher have the paperback rights? If not, you can probably sell them to someone else and save yourself the hassle of dealing with selling the book on your own.


If you've been following this saga on the POD thread, you'll know that I almost have half a venue (if not half a mind). But I do have the paperback rights assigned to me by the hc publisher.
When you say sell them to someone else, do you mean another publisher or a venture capitalist?
That being said, you wanna buy them?

[Lauri B]

I mean sell them to another publisher--if you think the manuscript is compelling enough to sell as a pb, then try to sell the rights so you can make some money. If not, why do POD, either?

[Schoolmarm]

Well, now . . . what an excellent point!

[Jamesaritchie]

There's no way I'd pay $25-30 for a paperback. I see nothing reasonable about this. Check out other 700 page paperbacks and look at the price. It's usually about a third of your top price, and almost never more than half.

One of the biggest problems with POD is that you do have to ask more for a book than most are willing to pay.

If you really have confidence in this book, then you might think conventional self-publishing. It costs a lot more up front, but it allows you to sell the book at a very competative price. Often at a much lower price than the same book from a conventional publisher.

[popmuze]

There's no way I'd pay $25-30 for a paperback. I see nothing reasonable about this. Check out other 700 page paperbacks and look at the price. It's usually about a third of your top price, and almost never more than half.

Are you sure you're thinking about trade softcover editions and not "supermarket paperbacks"? I'm looking at a couple of 700 page volumes right now, at about the same $30 price. But anyway, I think you're right. Looking further into discounts I'm beginning to think I'd have to charge even more than $30. After all the discounts and everything else, I'd be lucky to make the same percentage a regular publisher would pay me.

[Jamesaritchie]

Are you sure you're thinking about trade softcover editions and not "supermarket paperbacks"? I'm looking at a couple of 700 page volumes right now, at about the same $30 price. But anyway, I think you're right. Looking further into discounts I'm beginning to think I'd have to charge even more than $30. After all the discounts and everything else, I'd be lucky to make the same percentage a regular publisher would pay me.

It's the trade softcovers that I usually see for about half the thirty dollar price. Usually No more that $16.95. But it does depend on photo content, etc.

VBut I can guarantee that you can't do POD at the same price a similar book would cost with conventional publishing.

Conventional self-publishing can give you the same book for around four to five bucks per copy, sometimes less, if you can raise enough money to print in bulk. POD is great in that it requires very little money upfront, but this is also its biggest drawback.

[veinglory]

It seems to me that if you have the rights to self-pub, you have them to confer to a second publisher with fewer hidden costs and better distribtuion. If you can't find anyone interested then sure, you might as well Lulu it.

[Kristen King]

I'm with Nomad and veinglory on this one.

(Hi, JMF!)

Kristen

[pconsidine]

Just thought I'd chime in -

The price doesn't throw me all that much, but it is highly dependent on the field the book covers. There have been paperbacks that I've bought for mid-$20s, but those are hard science books that wouldn't be of interest to any but the most interested amateurs.

Being a popular music book, you might have a wider market, in which case you would run into the pricing issues mentioned above. Not that there aren't those same hardcore buyers out there, but one might think that they'd be happier having the hardcover at this point.

The fact that the hardcover is so pricey does seem to offer more latitude in pricing a paperback, though.

My 2¢? Definitely shop it around to conventional publishers first. There could very well be a number of buyers who can't justify the price of the hardcover, but would still love to have the book.

[Sandi LeFaucheur]

The Rolling Stone guides are about $30 for paperback. Mind, I believe they're about 1,000 pages or so. And the list price of Writing Feature Articles - Fourth Edition is $33.95 and it only has 412 pages.

People will pay the price if they need to. I needed the Feature Articles book for a course I'm taking, so I swallowed and bought it. I dare say if someone is passionate about your subject matter, or needed it for coursework, they wouldn't hesitate to pay $30. IMO

[popmuze]

Following the advice of many on this board, I sent it to Writer's Digest Books, where it's been spending the holidays.

[Lauri B]

Way to go, Pop--excellent plan! Keep us posted.

[ChunkyC]

Good luck, pop!

My 2 cents on pricing something like this -- since it's a reference book, you can't judge what to charge by what novels and other such paperback books sell for. I've paid anywhere from thirty to sixty dollars or more for softcover computer books that range from 500 to 1500 pages, whereas a 500 page paperback novel is about ten or twelve bucks. (Canadian prices)

[popmuze]

[quote=popmuze}I sent it to Writer's Digest Books, where it's been spending the holidays.[/quote]

To further clarify, I sent a query to Writer's Digest books, they said, send the book, so I did.