The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

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smsarber

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I guess not buying new releases saves me a lot of money. And any hardcovers I get from Doubleday book club at a discount. Wal-Mart sells most paperbacks for $5.97- my wife just bought me the paperback version of Dean Koontz Life Expectancy (retail $7.99) for $5.97, and John Grisham's The Innocent Man (also retail $7.99) for $5.00 for Valentine's Day. There is just no reason to pay more than $25.00 for any fiction book in my opinion, and certainly no reason to mock me.
 

smsarber

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But maybe I should have specified, so here it is: I am not talking about trade paperbacks, and I have no idea what a remaindered hardcover is, I'm just saying as much as I love to read, I can't see spending $30 on a book (fiction), especially in this economy. And when you live off disability.
 

Cyia

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Dunno how you do it. Trade paperbacks go for $12.95 and up (see list prices in the Publisher's Weekly bestseller list for an overview), and hardbacks typically start at $23.95 (before discounts in both cases), and these days can be upwards of $30 list, esp. for nonfiction. Among my recent purchases, Stop Walking on Eggshells, at $16.95 (trade paperback) , Peter, Paul & Mary Magdalene, $15.95 (trade paperback), and The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture ($25.00, trade paperback). Also, Robert B. Parker's Rough Weather ($26.95, hardback) and Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus ($24.95, hardback). B&N and Amazon and Costco discounts help, of course, so I'm rarely paying list prices. But even Costco was charging $15 or more for Rough Weather. I've noticed prices sneaking up on hardback novels, esp. by big name authors.

PA's prices are of course preposterous, even by those standards, and quality abysmal. That is how they can push those special deals (2 for 1, etc.), by jacking up list prices to absurd levels. But it is not fair to compare to mass-market paperback and remaindered hardback prices.

--Ken

Two words: Wal. Mart.
 

smsarber

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I was thinking, though, if PA sold books at mass-market paperback prices they would probably make more money then they do now with their outrageous prices. More people would buy boys at $7.99 a pop, and while their profit on each book would be less, it would theoretically increase their overall profits. So what does that tell you about the intelligience of the Three Stooges?
 

e.dashwood

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I was thinking, though, if PA sold books at mass-market paperback prices they would probably make more money then they do now with their outrageous prices. More people would buy boys at $7.99 a pop, and while their profit on each book would be less, it would theoretically increase their overall profits. So what does that tell you about the intelligience of the Three Stooges?

I think an actual sales operation/marketing department would introduce too much overhead for books that most booksellers won't stock. It would be a loser. Don't you think that at a lower price it would mostly be friends and family buying it anyway? Well, maybe a few more friends and family. With high prices, they can extract the most profit out of the realistic market for their books.
 

tlblack

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While I will go out of my way to pay a bit more for a book by one of my favorite authors, 9 times out of 10, I am able to find even those authors for a lot less than even a 40% retail discount. I will also wait a lot of times for the paperback version of a book I really want to read, or find it at the library, as my budget doesn't always have any extra money hanging around.

Times when the budget is already screaming, and I can't get to the library, I'll go by the dollar store and pick up a few books between .50 cents and $1 each, and I'll browse through the mark downs at the bookstores for hard covers. Rarely do I ever spend more than $15 for a hard cover, with the exception of a few I have purchased for over $50. They were worth the money and needed at the time for more than just a casual read.

As an example, when the Stephenie Myers book "Twilight" was so popular, my daughter-in-law had to have the entire series. As a gift, I found all four of them for less than $35, and two of those in hard cover. (new off the shelf, not used)

While I will pay more for a book, it's a rare occasion when I cannot find it somewhere for a lot less than the discounted retail. My first place to shop isn't always the bookstore, and I buy very few books online. I don't see the need to spend a fortune just because I love to read. As with anything one likes to do, whether it be a hobby or a pleasure, you have to find the most economical way to be able to enjoy it.
 

Christine N.

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Well, you can also get sales on Amazon. My two most recent books are probably in the $10-$11 range there now, both Trade Paperback, though they retail for $13 (which still isn't bad, IMO, since both are over 200 pages).

If you buy both (they make great gifts!) you get free shipping. I think. You might have to throw something else in there.

Mass Market are definitely cheaper - the $5-$7 range.
 

ResearchGuy

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. . .I have no idea what a remaindered hardcover is, . . . .
Remainders are the leftover books that end up in bookstore bargain bins and in mail-order discount catalogs. (I'm sure you have seen them, even if not familiar with the terminology.) Often they have a black mark on the bottom of the pages or other indication that they are remainders. You can often get new (but remaindered) hardbacks of best sellers for six dollars or so, esp. when the paperback edition is released a year after the hardback. Sometimes they are marked down to a dollar or two just to get rid of them quickly and not have to pulp them. Barnes & Noble (our local one, at least) carries a large selection of remaindered books. Amazon also has a bargain book section that probably is largely made up of remainders. The remainder business is part of the system, and a reason why most books published in the standard way have short shelf lives. If not sold within a few months, they are remaindered to make way for new releases. Trade paperbacks are also found among the remainders, but not mass-market paperbacks. Those typically get pulped, as the covers are ripped off the unsold books and returned for credit.

I buy a lot of new books because for my (often obsessive) interests and purposes I often cannot (or prefer not to) wait for paperbacks (which might not be forthcoming anyway) or for remainders. Best sellers are often nearly half-price at Costco, so I'll buy those if by a handful of favorite authors. (But my household is far from typical, with maybe 10,000 books accumulated over 50 years or so, and two householders who are obsessive readers with wide interests.)

I certainly agree that for ordinary leisure reading, there is never a need to pay anything close to list price. Around here, libraries have racks and racks of donated books selling for fifty cents to two dollars, and the SPCA has massive semi-annual sales of donated books, cheap cheap cheap. Print-on-demand books are rarely going to be available that way (very few copies were ever printed), so there is little opportunity in those for bargain-hunters.

Sometimes overambitious first printings end up in the remainder bins for years. The first American edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has been available at my local B&N as a six dollar remainder year after year, for example. Sometimes it is second, third, or subsequent printings that did not sell out that are the remaindered books.

Sorry for information overload. And no, I was in no way, shape, or form "mocking" you. (As a biblioholic whose staircase serves as supplemental bookshelves, I am a ripe target for mocking.)

--Ken
 

ResearchGuy

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I was thinking, though, if PA sold books at mass-market paperback prices . . .
That would require mass-market levels of print quantities (tens of thousands of copies at once) and distribution through mass-market channels (the same distributors who handle magazines stock the paperback racks in countless locations), with very thin margins and high returns. Books with tiny potential markets (the author's friends and family or a few people in the author's local area) are not candidates for mass-market paperbacks.

FWIW.

--Ken
 

narnia

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I was thinking, though, if PA sold books at mass-market paperback prices they would probably make more money then they do now with their outrageous prices. More people would buy boys at $7.99 a pop, and while their profit on each book would be less, it would theoretically increase their overall profits. So what does that tell you about the intelligience of the Three Stooges?

The last time I bought a boy I paid over 10 bucks. ;)

(Teasing with love ... :LilLove:)

:Sun:
 

Gillhoughly

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They're releasing 146 new titles a WEEK?

Ambitious, Stooges, very hilariously ambitious.

Gas for the Hellocopter must cost a lot, but think how much money you're saving by not sending out any author copies or hiring editors.

Dear PA Lurkers
--there are advance-paying legit publishers who don't release that many titles per YEAR. How can you expect YOUR work to get the attention it needs with the ridiculous system PA has?

But then a real publisher bothers with things like editing, copy editing, galleys, paying advances, and actual distribution to get their authors' books into stores, not to mention you get free copies to show the family.

It's all free. You don't have to pay for it, you do not lose the rights to your work, and you will NOT be locked into a 7 year contract.

But don't believe me. Go to the library, hit the 808 section and find out how publishing actually works. PA is counting on your wholesale ignorance of the process. There's nothing they like better.

You not knowing how things work is money in the bank to them.

Your money.

Have you gotten your weekly "buy now, have a copy on hand" e-mail yet?

Thought so.
 

megoblocks

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They must have an editing department that rivals the size of the govt in terms of employees if they can put out 146 books in a week :)
 

triceretops

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If 146 books a week doesn't scream vanity mill, what does? You'd have to be blind, wearing earmuffs and have your head in the sand to not know this.

They used to average about 80 books a week, and we thought that was profuse.

Lurkers: They need you to step right away into the machine and exit out the other end as a Stepford Scribe. Don't pay any attention to the man behind the drapes. Ignore him, and let him work his magic. And if you've already stepped through the machine, I know you're ignoring this.

Tri
 

smsarber

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Lurkers: They need you to step right away into the machine and exit out the other end as a Stepford Scribe. Don't pay any attention to the man behind the drapes. Ignore him, and let him work his magic. And if you've already stepped through the machine, I know you're ignoring this.

Tri
Or, to me, a better visual: The part of Pink Floyd The Wall where the kids all drop from the conveyor belt into the grinder to come out as identical pieces of meat. Cuz that's what you are to PA- meat with a pocketbook, a checkbook, a credit card...
 

Don Davidson

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A few observations from a survey of PA books

A hundred forty-six books in this week's new releases. Many of the covers are two-color or not full color. Is PA trying to save money on ink?

A few observations based on a review of the first 35 of the 146 new releases from PA (hopefully, a representative sample). 16 have a retail price of $16.95; 16 have a retail price of $24.95 (including 3 books which are obviously for small children); two have a retail price of $27.95; and one has a retail price of $29.95. All books are either 5.5” x 8.5” or 6” x 9”, except for the three books for small children, which are 8.5” x 8.5”. The $16.95 books are all 6” x 9”, but the other thirteen $24.95 books are about half-and-half (7 are 5.5” x 8.5” and 6 are 6” x 9”). Other than the three books for small children, there is a direct correlation between the number of pages and the price: $16.95 (no book had more than 99 pages); $24.95 (all had more than 100 pages, the longest being 224 pages); $27.95 (257 & 281 pages); $29.95 (326 pages). And 100% of the 35 books were badly overpriced.
 

Gillhoughly

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there is a direct correlation between the number of pages and the price: $16.95 (no book had more than 99 pages);

Not that I am promoting self-publishing, but since PA is a vanity mill, let's compare to Lulu's self-pub prices:

A 6X9 Lulu trade PB, 99 pages with a B&W cover will cost 6.48.

Figure Lulu has doubled the price to make a profit, and the base price to print that book is 3.24.

Figure PA's base cost is the same, 3.24.

They're making 13.71 for each one sold to the writer.

They don't have to worry about giving the writer a royalty out of that, since buying your own book is not a royalty sale.

So the Stooges made at least 219.36 (plus the padded S&H charges) if each of those 16 writers ordered a copy "to have on hand".

Dear PA Lurker--THAT is what anyone would call a ripoff--and NO ONE would mistake that for anything else.


Lulu prices jump significantly when you slap on a color cover. The same book then costs 24.30.

I can live without a color cover.

$29.95 (326 pages).
Lulu, B&W cover is 11.02.

three books for small children, which are 8.5” x 8.5”.

Lulu, B&W cover, 7.98

At least when you post a book on Lulu you can put up sample chapters. If they have a message board, I'm sure they're not in the habit of banning posts they don't like.

They're a printing business, and they understand its bad customer relations to not politely address customer concerns. If you don't like their service, you simply take down your book. You're not tied up for 7 years in a nasty, no-win contract.

Since PA is striving SO HARD to pretend to be a legit publisher, they cannot allow anyone to question or complain about anything they do that is not what a legit publishing house does.

(Or what PA doesn't do, like editing and getting books into the stores. Remember that "being available" in a store is not the same as being IN the store.)

Please, dear lurker, make a single simple post on their board questioning PA's high prices, and see how fast it's removed.

Here--I'll write it for you:

"Hey, fellow PA family--is anyone else concerned about PA books being higher priced than the ones in the stores? I'm sure people will pay extra for quality writing, but my 200 page book is 24.95, and the same length at the store is only 13.95. That's the retail price. They're even cheaper on Amazon. Any thoughts?"

I guarantee the InfoMonster will have that one in the cornfield soon as she sees it.

Try posting it again, and see how fast you get banned altogether.
 

James D. Macdonald

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A 6X9 Lulu trade PB, 99 pages with a B&W cover will cost 6.48.

Hang on a second. That isn't a B&W cover. It's B&W interior printing. I've done Lulu printing (including the infamous Atlanta Nights); the books all have color covers, and not a one of them costs any $16.95.

Atlanta Nights is 299 pages and retails at $15.78.


(The other Lulu books I did: A Mery Play Betwene Johan Johan, the Husbande, Tyb, his Wyf, and Syr Jhan, the Preest (a public domain text that I used as an experiment to see how fast I could get a book released, from a standing start, with nothing but a raw text file) $6.43, 34 pages, full color cover, and The Confessions of Peter Crossman, (a collection of three of my previously-published short stories), $7.47, 86 pages, full color cover.)

Total cost to me: Zero.

(I did eventually buy the ISBN and distribution package for Atlanta Nights, but only after the book had earned enough to pay for it.)
 
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