Update: Bad News?

I've enjoyed my little vacation these last couple of days—I really should do this more often. It's surprisingly rejuvenating. Can you imagine taking as much as (gasp!) two days off every week?!? Such a thing seems exotic and strange, and preposterously luxurious.

I'd probably be bored, though. I mean, my work is my fun.

I've made quite a bit of progress with the book plans during my "vacation." We've had a setback, but I've also identified a potential distributor (i.e., a fufillment service) and had a very productive discussion with her (keeping in mind international customers—I will not neglect those of you who live in countries other than my own, never fear), and I'm looking into U.S.-based printers for future volumes as well.

One possible bit of bad (?) news: it looks like the first book, whatever it is, will have a pretty limited printing. More or less 450 copies, is what it's looking like.

Will that be enough? Well, I have no idea, and therein lies that particular rub. You see, I'd like to make this (the printing of TOP books, whatever the company will eventually be named) a regular, ongoing thing, and I just have no idea yet how it's going to work out in terms of numbers...until we try it a few times. With blogging, throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks is easy. With books, it might be a little harder. But that's the only way to calibrate.

The house down the street
If you'll indulge me a more personal note (I know some people very naturally have no interest in my office-space situation! Sorry...), a bit of an update on "the house down the street" with the big office space on the first floor that I was so excited about a few weeks ago: alas, the owners have priced it well above its value, and my realtor is actively discouraging me from considering it. They're asking $80,000 (28%) above the city tax assessment, or something in the neighborhood of $55–65,000 (!) above market value.

My realtor (who is one of the best in town, and has 25 years of experience selling houses here), says most houses are currently selling for below their tax assessment in Waukesha right now and that only a few are selling for more—and those, for only slightly more. Nothing is selling for 28% more.

Which means the sellers are being unrealistic.

Considering that a bank will base a mortgage on the selling price or the appraisal, whichever is lower, overpricing a house makes it much harder for prospective buyers to secure financing. You essentially have to make up the difference out of your own pocket.

So I've had to give up that idea for now. In the immortal words of Roseanne Rosannadanna (I should have this engraved backwards* on my forehead): "It's always something."

Last book note for now
Having been happily immersed in the book project for the past few days I feel like I could write about it more or less indefinitely, and this post is already too long. But I'll relate one more idea. One thing I'm considering is that as a regular thing, we'll mail out some 50 complimentary copies of all of our books to a "publicity list" consisting of a select group of photo museums, magazines, galleries, school libraries, website managers, and perhaps individual critics. I'll probably need some help coming up with such a list and keeping it groomed, but it seems like it would help us ("us" meaning our yet-to-be-named book publishing arm) and the photographer in equal measure, and would be another way that we could give added value to the photographers whose work we'll be publishing.

Normally what is sent out is a reviewer's list, hoping to get publicity for sales. Since I anticipate selling out right here on li'l ol' TOP, we won't need reviews for sales purposes. I'm talking about just helping to make a select group of institutions aware of our books and they work they feature, to raise the profile of the work a bit more.

Good idea, or idle fantasy? Again, time will tell.

Experimentation shall proceed!

Mike
 

*I.e., right way 'round in the mirror, if you didn't get that.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Julian: "Can you run the initial sale of the book on the same model as the print sales? I am sure that plenty of us would be willing to buy the book once you are ready to go to press and you have a rough idea of when you can start shipping. I would certainly pay up front rather than risk missing out. I am also much more likely to do this for a book than a print."

Mike replies: No, can't do that. I had an experience years ago of pre-selling a book that then was not able to be printed on time. It trashed my reputation and caused all manner of headaches literally for years. I might risk it for a second printing, but not for the first.

Comments

[MikeK]

Are you planning on being a 'proper' publisher with an ISBN for each book?

[Yes. --Mike]

[m3photo]

Welcome back - had us worried there for a minute … ;-)

"Which means the sellers are being unrealistic."

Which means the sellers are also connected to the internet and read TOP? Wouldn't be surprised - nothing worse than a keen buyer ...

[Sergio Bartelsman]

If you don't overprice your book like the house down the street, I'll take one.

[Tom Kwas]

...when my Mom died two years ago, we had to sell her very wonderful four bedroom, two story house 44,000 under assessment...then, when the deal went through the month we were selling it, the city reassessed it down another 20K, so it ended up only (!) 24,000 under assessment. But still, there were people in her neighborhood that bought ranch homes half the size of hers, just pre-2008, for 80,000 above what we had to sell for, and we felt "lucky" to sell it.

Article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week about how Milwaukee has 30% of the areas population working at poverty wages, something I've been telling people since I've gotten back here from the east coast, and they haven't been believing! After looking at marketing statistics for a long time, it's interesting to note that the greater Milwaukee area has an "average family income" of about 12-15K below the national averages.

The moral of the story being: No, you should NOT pay a premium to buy anything in this metro area now (no matter what people think it's worth), and once the income of your metro area starts to slide, it's almost impossible to bring it back.

Lots of retired people in this area still think their houses are worth the last 'big' assessment they got, so it's still in their minds, and they are intractable about selling. My brother, who handled the house sale, had about ten stories about people not taking their "first best offer" on places, only to have to hold on to the properties for another 18-24 months and settle for less than they were originally offered...

[MM]

Unless there's something endearing about your exact street . . . remember that it's no more hassle or expense to move 3 miles than it is to move 3 blocks (i.e., either way everything you own has to be boxed, put into a truck, unloaded, and unboxed). If you can widen your net a little, you'll doubtless find great things.

[Bill OBrien]

Mike, Make an official offer on the house for what you would be willing to pay. Lots of sellers start out to high and this gets people turned off, (also real estate agents). Eventually they get reasonable and they may come back, seen it happen in our development many times.

[john crowley]

Glad to hear you will not neglect your international customers Mike. Not knowing the price or the shipping costs, I, for one, would still like to pre order the book. TOP Books or whatever name you will use, will be top class I'm sure.

[Jim Becia]

Mike,

I'm not sure why the anxiety over the book publishing. Why not handle it similarly to your print sale?. You could take preorders on the book, that would give you a good starting point and the cash to begin the whole process. Amazon (not that I am comparing you to Amazon) presells many books. In your case, it is a chance to gauge interest, and at the same time accumulate some needed funds.

[Kevin Pfeifle]

Mike, just a quick thought on the future book. Why don't you have a non binding poll. Something like the book will be 40 pages and cost $65.00...how many people would be interested? At least this would give you a rough idea of how many copies you might sell.

[BH]

I'm glad the bad news wasn't health related. That could be bad news. What you're describing is just life!

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

I'm not sure I understand the book problem. So, you do a first printing of 450. If it sells out instanter, you do a second printing of 450. Just like a "real publisher" would. Books are not, by default, thought to come in limited editions, unless you explicitly and specifically choose that to be the case.

Also, most people (me included) truly don't give a damn about first editions or printings, so long as the quality of the book's no different.

pax / Ctein
==========================================
-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
==========================================

[Ed]

No Ctein,

First editions are damned importent. Some people (I call them wealthy idiots) pay top dollar for first editions. But only if all of them are told their pytifull lives are incomplete without one. And that happens when the whole of the first edition is allready sold to people like you and me who don't care about first editions (and treated the books mostly accordingly because they loved the content). So the people who bought the book and did not care about the content (and tucked it away in a safe place a.k.a. the attic) make top dollar selling them to rich stupid idiots, so to speak as a service to their own "carelessness". Therefore I should advise everyone to buy the first edition (get Mike to sign it, unless he signs everyone of course then the plot from "Noting Hill" comes to mind :-)), never read it, store it in the attic, best forget all about it and let your grandchildren discover it in 50 years time. Then hope the second and third edition sold out in millions and bring the book to an auction at Christies and wait for the stash of cash. But first buy the book, already, damned.

[Dean Johnston]

Hey!

> I.e., right way 'round in the mirror, if you didn't get that.

There was this kid at school, a couple of years younger then me. He went to prison. He tattooed himself on his forehead. A single word. It was backwards. No lie, heard about it, then a few years later saw it myself.

[S.J. yokel]

Keep yer powder dry Mike. The best thing about an overpriced listing is they often sell at a discount to the market eventually. Just sayin'.

[Bear.]

A "punk" at my school in the then current local lingo was very conscious of mirror images when self-tattooing large letters on his forehead in black ink. He got the letters the correct way around. But instead of "SKINS", he wrote "SNIKS". True story.

[Dennis Ng]

How about promise a e-book plus a hard copy as a gift later without promise (but we trust you will deliver). Fix the e-book delivery with the sale the date but the hard copy would come likely within 1 year of the e-book selling date. I think reader of yours would be tolerant of this. We can even see sample chapter.

I suggest this is because you do not know the sale volume and I suspect v much that the sale volume affect your margin or even your lost/profit situation. By using this model, you get a better estimate.

The last thing you want is to have a book sale and you ended with the remaining stock of the book if you just over-estimate a bit of demand. Of course, you are sure you are under-produced so that some of us would not get it :-) it is another matter.

Clear the market is a very hard thing to do, Mike!

[Peter]

I was worried for a moment, but I should have known better. Welcome back, nice to see you're planning the future.