[Sca-cooks] Spiral Bound or Perfect? One Book or Two

Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com
Sat Oct 23 07:16:50 PDT 2010


There are pluses and minuses as to all the ideas.

I think cost will be the major factor as to how many people actually  
buy a new edition but how to determine what that price point should be  
might be difficult.

For example-
The original edition of the Delights from the Garden of Eden, an Iraqi  
Cookbook was self published on demand by Ibook or 1st Books in 2003  
and ran 664 pages. Amazon currently says $41.95 list price and they  
are selling it now for $35.48.
Authorhouse now lists it right now on the website at Perfect Bound  
Softcover(B/W) Price: $22.95.
They may be selling it rather cheap at the moment as the new edition  
is coming out.
(I paid $29.37 when I bought it from Amazon upon publication.  The  
actual price isn't listed on the book. The new forthcoming hardback  
second edition (680 pages) by another publishing house will run $45.00.)

So what is a fair price for a perfect bound volume of 664 pages--  
$22.95 in 2010 with $3.16 shipping or what I paid in 2003 with free  
shipping?

Shipping and handling will figure into the total price scheme too. Can  
the company handle international shipping at a reasonable rate? And  
what sort of discounts will be given for quantity orders, should for  
instance you do a book signing and want to make copies available for  
sale at the talk or signing?

Does the company/press deal with Amazon? Will it be sold on Amazon,  
even if at a higher price? Can it be carried by booksellers like Devra?

---
I would think breaking it into one volume for the cookery and one  
volume for the non-cookery might appeal to those people that would  
just want the cookery sections.

You might compare prices between the spiral bindings and the perfect  
bindings. I will point out the perfect bound Delights from the Garden  
of Eden is perfectly usable. The book lies open without any  
difficulty. I think actually the layout, the use of fonts and margins  
is probably more important for ease of use. Also full size pages might  
be advantageous. The Garden is done as  8.25x11 which would be like  
past editions of the Miscellany.
---
One last point as to sales will be convincing people that they need a  
new edition. What will this edition offer that readers can't find on  
the web at <www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/miscellany.html > <www.daviddfriedman.com/.../miscellany_pdf/Miscellany.htm 
 > ? Or will the electronic versions be deleted?

Johnnae



On Oct 23, 2010, at 12:37 AM, David Friedman wrote:

> The tenth edition of the _Miscellany_ is going to total about 370  
> pages, of which about half is recipes and closely related articles.  
> I plan to produce it via a POD online publisher, which should be  
> both less expensive than Office Max and save me all the trouble of  
> filling orders. Two questions:
>
> 1. What looks like the most attractive of the publishers only  
> publishes perfect bound books; past editions of the Miscellany were  
> "spiral bound," which makes it possible for the book to lie flat  
> fully open.
> 2. Should the _Miscellany_ be published as two volumes, one on  
> cooking and one on everything else?
> Opinions? What would people here prefer? What do they think the  
> wider audience would prefer?
>




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