First of all, I want to thank you all for your comments, both public and private, regarding the possible cancellation of my first book, “Finding Place”:http://revjim.net/book/20054q-finding-place/. Several of you who purchased the book even asked me to keep your payment regardless of the status of the book. One of you even went out of your way to “promote the book”:http://revjim.net/2006/03/29/finding-place-linking-information/ even more. That really touches my heart and I can’t express how much that really means to be. Thank you, truly.
There seems to be a few common thoughts expressed that I wish to address.
* “… do you *only* want to produce this to make a profit?” (emphasis mine).
A profit is not the *only* reason for producing a book, but it certainly is one of them. I’d be happy to just break even for the year. Other goals include exposure, and self-satisfaction. The self-satisfaction is still there, sure. But, part of the self-satisfaction comes from fulfilling the other two goals. But, unfortunately, with only 5 copies being sold, my exposure is going to be next to nothing. Unless, of course, I’m willing to eat even more cost in order to get them into book stores and galleries where they might be seen. Which brings me to the next thought.
* “Have you looked into any forums selling [books] for you without excess work on your part?”
Of course I have. I’m very meticulous when it comes to research. I’ve looked at every angle I could find, and considered the cost of pursuing each angle and several variants of those angles. If you know something I don’t, I’d be forever grateful for the information. There are several problems with this idea.
First, in order to get books on shelves, I have to pay for them and hope that they sell. Yes, every business involves risks, and many of those risks are monetary. The idea behind the pre-sale was to gather enough interest to fund at least a portion of that risk and to give me confidence that the books will sell. With the profit I’ve made so far, I can afford to buy 3 books for myself.
The second problem is that the galleries and bookstores aren’t going to sell them for free. My profit margins are already pretty low (about $15 per book at the pre-sale price and that’s without any overhead being counted in). Some galleries want up to 50% of the sales price. If these books retail at $60 and I have to give half to the gallery, I’d make $5 each. To make matters worse, all of the galleries and most of the book stores don’t buy the books won’t buy the books from me. Instead, they only pay me when the books sell, so I still eat the cost if the books sit on shelves.
* “Some people are reluctant to buy things without seeing them first.”
This is a very valid point and part of the reason my research only yielded an expectation of 50 pre-sale orders. Those who know me, have worked with me before, and trust me, or are friends of those that know me and trust me will be willing to buy in pre-sale knowing that the product produced will be of the highest quality and that the money will be refunded if the product doesn’t make it to market. Those outside of that circle will be reluctant to pay any money until the book has printed and is ready to be sold with an expected delivery date.
However, even if I manage to sell twice as many after print as I have in pre-sale, the profit is still lower than I’d like, but at least livable. $425 total. This is one of the few reasons I’m still considering going forward with this.
* “…you might even lose money but over time more and more people will see it and want it.”
The problem is, I don’t want to lose any more money. Last year I claimed a net loss of over $5000. And I didn’t do a very good job of tracking expenses last year. If I had, that number would be much higher. $5000 is a drop in the bucket in the long run if I intend to do this full time, but until that determination is made, this is still a “hobby” and an “art form” and not a “job”. I don’t intend on making it a “job” until I know that I can sustain myself and my family doing it, and that I can do so by taking work that I enjoy doing.
At this point, my only goal in taking a single penny for any of the work that I do is to cover some of my costs so that I can afford better things and bigger projects. I’m willing to spend money if it helps me do more of what I enjoy, or makes it easier to do the tasks that I don’t enjoy. Making the images for the book was a lot of fun. Making the book itself is some of the most tedious and boring work I’ve ever had to do. It’s cut and paste ad-nauseum. If Microsoft Word would cooperate, it might be less tedious, but I don’t think the fine people at Microsoft intended people to make photography books with their software. If they did, they did a very bad job of accommodating that task.
* “I think that everyone who says just do it is right, especially if it means you will have excess copies.”
But I wont have excess copies. If I did, you’re right, that would change things a lot. But, as it stands right now, I put in 18 hours of work, I take home $75, I don’t sell another book, and I don’t even have a copy for myself.
