Print run

Publishers are close-mouthed about their print runs. At least they always are to me, lol. Today I found out in a roundabout way how many copies of my upcoming text PH is budgeting for. An image I wanted turned out to be too costly, so I was asked to select another. This request was attached to a long string of inter-office emails that discussed the acquisition process (which, itself, was very interesting), cost, and print run. Buried in this string was the info that the picture was needed for an estimated run of 100,000 (print, ebook and Power Point). Heh -that's a lot of books! Publishers sure take a big financial risk. I sure hope the demand lives up to it.

Wow, and I got excited over 40. I'll bet the demand will be there. You have the skills and credentials to back it up.

Ann

LC,
that's a lot of books. Congratulations.

Ann, thanks, but whether I have the "skills" or not is determined by the folks who decide whether to use it for their classes -the ultimate peer review! Abe, don't congratulate me yet, you'll jinx me! lol That number is what PH budgeted to publish, not what I've sold. It's not even out yet for anyone to buy.

I was emailed the final proofs of each chapter and was looking through them. It's kind of scary -when writing the book, you sit alone in your room, wondering what to type, what pictures to put in, etc., etc., and never really know if you're on point or missing the mark. You alone select all the content in those pages and the support staff just goes along with you, trusting that you know what you're doing.

If it sounds too good to be true ...

The emails were about costing and hence the request for a replacement image. Could it be that the 100,000 was total cost of print run and not number of books? A 20,000 print run @ $5/book would cost $100,000 (or 10,000 @ $10/book), which would still be high for a texbook (the average print run for academic books is 1,500 copies or less: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ).

No, it was the estimated total number of copies of printed books, ebooks and Power Point slides. They needed to give a number to the license holder of the artwork I wanted to use, because the cost was based on that number, and size on page. They told the license holder that the image would be 1/4 page on 100,000 copies. The string of emails was quite long and involved a bunch of people; various editors, permissions experts, staff from an artists' rights association, and even someone from the artist's estate.

BTW, my book is neither a monograph nor an academic book. It's a textbook aimed at a large, 101 population. And 1,500 is way low for such a book. My first text has blown way past that already in just three years, and its target market is much smaller than this book's market. This book is competing against a text that is in every single school of this subject (it's the only one of its kind -soon it will have competition. ) My first editor estimated the competitor's sales at about 15,000 print books/year. Which doesn't include ebooks, Coursesmart mix-and-match offerings or Power Point slides.

Okay, the estimate included ebooks -- but you cannot estimate ebooks. It's like saying how long is a piece of string. Therefore, you have to estimate high so that the permission covers all those sales in the event that the ebook takes off -- otherwise the book would have to be taken offline while new permission was sought.

They're probably also considering the book's possible lifespan through multiple editions. One of the reasons the artwork I wanted was turned down was because the license was only offered for 5 years.

About estimating ebooks, for texts, I don't think it's like string length. They have plenty of data to go on for how many of their other texts get sold as ebooks or Coursemart mix-and-matches.

Yes, but the Kindle and Nook ereaders are now much more affordable and ebook sales are on the increase.

Well, no one buys a textbook unless they have to, ebook or not. And even as ebooks, texts right now aren't much cheaper than their print versions. I don't think mine has general trade appeal, but I may be wrong.

The latest prediction for digital textbooks:

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Congratulations, LC.

That article is about digital books not specifically e-books. Digital books are those that are printed with digital technology as opposed to offset printing. POD books, for example are digital. The difference being that an offset run needs a minimum number of copies to be cost-effective, which then results in the need for warehousing, whereas digital books can be printed one at a time on an as-needed basis.

Quote :

but you cannot estimate ebooks. It's like saying how long is a piece of string.

I am curious about why e-book numbers cannot be estimated. Is it just that they don't know yet how many students use e-readers?

I think you need to read it again, Al. The article is about online textbooks (digital) as opposed to print textbooks (POD or offset printing).

Students are being actively encouraged to change from print to ebooks:

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What does this article about a high school experimenting with texts on Kindles have to do with anything? And the students aren't being "encouraged" to change from print to ebook, they're being loaned a reader with the texts pre-loaded. The one experiment I know of at the college level, at some college in Missouri, was a dismal failure.

And while the texts in this article may be cheaper than print versions, college texts aren't much cheaper. You can see this on Amazon. Digital versions are a few bucks less than the print ones, where they're even offered.

Shelagh wrote:

I think you need to read it again, Al. The article is about online textbooks (digital) as opposed to print textbooks (POD or offset printing).

Then they're either misusing the term "digital" or just changing what it means.

Online textbooks are not what they were calling digital. POD is what they were calling digital. At least that's how it was not long ago.

So, we had e-books, which can be read on-line or with an e-reader, and print books which could be printed by using digital or offset print technology.

I wonder what they'll be calling them next month.

So, I re-read the article as you suggested, and I believe you have misunderstood what they are saying. In fact, the author differentiates between e-textbooks and digital textbooks in at least two places.

Definitions of Digital books on the Web:

• An e-book (short for electronic book,or EBook), also known as a digital book, is an e-text that forms the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book, sometimes restricted with a digital rights management system. ...
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_books
  

DRM (digital rights management) is a system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the Internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and/or disabling illegal distribution of the data. Typically, a DRM system protects intellectual property by either encrypting the data so that it can only be accessed by authorized users or marking the content with a digital watermark or similar method so that the content can not be freely distributed.

Digital may have applied to Print-on-Demand technology in the past, but it is mostly associated with electronic data these days.

My acquisitions editor--who is at Penguin now--uses "digital" to mean POD technologies, which they are using more and more to avoid warehousing and overstocking.

She says the terms they use are "digital" vs "typeset" vs "electronic" in the ways I used them above. She said the usages are critical in the wording of contracts with respect to rights.

I suspect it will all settle in eventually, but just now there seems to be some ambiguity in the usage.

Reading the article a third time, I found ambiguous usages there, and now I'm not sure what he's talking about. So I acquiesce to your interpretation.

Digital Book Index:

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Wow, This turned into a discussion on what 'Digital Book' means? LOL.
I am happy for you. Glad that you are getting a book published in a large number, (whether it is digital, hardback, or e-book!).

I can see where getting the terminology correct could be a contractual issue. I know Amazon.com has used digital to refer to electronic media for years.

"Digital" all by itself in this context means ones and zeros. It is used to prefix many applications of things that can be represented or implented digitally. We can't use its definition alone to define one of those phrases. Digital clock, digital computer, digital examination. Those phrases use "digital" to mean three very different things, and a broad definition of digital does not explain them.

(It's pointless to try to explain the meaning of, for example, "blue moon" by defining "blue.")

In this discussion, a subtopic of this thread, we started with what "digital publishing" means, which, at least for a time, had a narrow, well-defined meaning, one that is still used by mainstream dead tree publishers. And, with "electronic publishing" already in place with an equally narrow, well-defined meaning, there was no need to confuse the two.

But everything's digital these days, and it's only natural that language would morph just as this discussion has. Language morphing is usually a function of folks wanting to sound cool and knowledgeable, so they appropriate a perfectly good word or phrase and make it mean something else, and with time, the meaning changes, much to the chagrin of others who were comfortable with the original meaning. (Get me started on "relational database" and "object-oriented programming.") These well-intended morphs confuse discussions with ambiguous meanings.

Said language shifts are a concern of writers who write period pieces. Imagine saying in your book that Winston Churchill was a gay man. That's how they might have described a man's jolly nature in his time. But the word doesn't mean that any more.

Any discussion about language is well-placed and should be welcomed in a writer's forum.

Yes, I understand that period language changes the meaning of words. Al, your instance with Churchill is a prime example. And yes, I know that we all need to keep up with new meaning of words.
I for one, live in an area of the U.S. where there are A LOT of people who use Ebonics as their primary language. And that is basically a bunch of words used completely different than what they were originally used for. It is very hard for me to just walk down the street when a stranger stops me and asks for the time. lol
I was just wanting to explain that this person got a deal for his book and I was happy about it. I did not want that to be shadowed by what 'digital' means. Even though it is an important topic, and for his instance, he needs to know what digital was referring to.

Actually, I haven't gotten anything for the book yet, save a royalty statement that says I'm in arrears the advance amount. The book doesn't come out until May. I started this thread to discuss how I found out, in a roundabout way, a way to estimate the print run, since that info is never shared by publishers.

Language isn't the only thing where meaning changes -I think meaning and intent was changed in this thread. Re-reading it, I'm wondering what the relevance of the increasing affordability of Nooks and Kindles, and sales of ebooks is, as well why estimating ebook sales is impossible. I'm thinking Shelagh was morphing to general trade books, whereas this thread was about a textbook. Even so, I suspect that the publishers of large ebook presses can still estimate how many ebooks they might sell of a title, based on past history.

It could be that the popularity of e-books is increasing at a rate that they can't get a handle on and cannot predict.