On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 03:55:17PM -0600, Ian Weller wrote:
On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 09:29:18PM -0800, Doug Berry wrote:
> When I mentioned using Wal-mart or Amazon as vendors, that
> is of course one way we could go. We will have that
> automatically when we register with LSI. But the most profitable
> way to go would be to sell any books ourselves. If a vendor
> sells the book, they are going to add 15%, that is deducted
> out of our profit, not from LSI.
>
> Setting up a web page and taking orders ourselves would mean
> we would make the most profit from our book.
The only real reason I would want to do this is if we decreased the
purchase price accordingly. I think the less hassle we put on us (have
distributors do the work for us), the better, and the extra bit in the
price pays for itself. From what I understand, we're setting the
wholesale price, not the retail price though.
That's not to say I'm completely against doing the shipping ourselves.
Agreed about letting the distributors take up some of the work if it's
possible and not too cost prohibitive.
> I am not sure what you mean with the four different books.
> Is that four books at once, or one at a time? Book sales
> are almost impossible to predict. But I think that the first
> book will sell. It may well pay for the other four.
>
The first set would be four books at once, aligning with the four
foundations. We need a *lot* more marketing collateral on these and this
is just another way to push that during this release cycle.
Agreed again. It would be great to integrate Mo's graphics with the
cover design, the endpapers, and/or some part of the interior page
design:
http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/collateral/fourfs/
> One way to gage this: at this upcoming FUDCON, if we are going
> to be passing out release forms, maybe we could take a legal
> pad or pledge cards and ask people "would you like to pre-order
> the book your picture will be in?" If the people whose pictures
> and names are going to be in the book, won't commit to buying
> it, we might as well quit right now.
>
Great idea! I'll put those on the release forms we make up.
> Then again, we are not even bound, no pun intended, to producing
> a bound book. We could go magazine style: folded pages, stapled
> in the middle, the cheapest type of book. We could do any amount
> of pages, 20, 40, 80, 160.
>
I was thinking that the idea would be that we have a nice, high-quality
physical book. Quite frankly, paperback would be the least I would go in
quality.
I *really* would prefer hardbacks. That's a much more lasting item,
whether we give as gifts or buy for ourselves. But again, if the cost
makes them so expensive no one will buy them, that would be a silly
requirement. I just hope they're not *that* costly.
--
Paul W. Frields
http://paul.frields.org/
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