My new book, Parker Guns: Shooting Flying and the American Experience (Collector Books, Paducah KY) is work in process now, starting with the cover set-up. The M/S and picture portfolio with captions is complete, but It usually takes a year or more to go from contract to release; I signed the contract in late August, and it's scheduled for Xmas 2008, which means it must be available to dealers and distributors by Labor Day. So far the M/S has been peer reviewed by Kevin McCormack, Bruce Day, Dave "Researcher" Noreen, Vic Venters, Charlie Price, and Austin Hogan, and a M/s copy is in te hands of Mike Carrick. No serious complaints.
I notice on another thread that someone was asking about the new L.C.Smith book at $125. In today's publishing climate where we gun cranks are all watching 24-hour cable news while dwelling for hours on this website when not checking our e-mail or Blackberry or Instant Messaging or blogging...well, who has time to read a book? And thus the author of the new Smith book fronted so many $$$ for professional photography and to his subsidy publisher that he will be lucky to get back his out of pocket if all the print run sells out at $125 retail. So buy early and often.
Per contra, I ducked the self publishing bullet when I found a conventional publishing house interested in doing my book.
More important is distribution and economies of scale. Without naming the book or author, another self-publish effort at Schiffler with a 4,000 book print run worked out like this: Authors purchased 2,000 of their own book at $28 per copy (that's $56,000 for Florida voters), and Schiffler kept 2,000 to sell through ordinary book stores and dealers. Books sold by publishers in quantities of 2,000 will usually be discounted 60% or more. Distributor purchase price of 40% of the $70 cover price = $28 so the authors, who have to retail their own book to make out, could have bought any book for $28 in the 2,000 lot size and didn't have to go to all the trouble of taking photos and writing text. In other words, this gun book writing gig is strictly a labor of love.
Anyone interested in what I have to sell (books, reprint catalogs, poster) can e-mail me their address for a snail-mail flyer. Although I have been fortunate to strike responsive chords with publishers who actually pay me $$$ up front, the amounts are about what I would make behind the counter at McDonalds, and I don't get any free french fries. EDM
