I received the most amazing book in the mail yesterday. It was witty and erudite, full of insightful anecdotal evidence, and is just an all-around must read for anyone. There are probably two reasons why authors shouldn't be allowed to review their own books, and that's the first one. The second would be the complete opposite reaction. Replace all the positive adjectives with the most negative ones you can think of, the more pertinent to defecation the better, and you'll get the picture.
Okay so it was my own book that came in the mail yesterday. As I had explained, I think, at some point in time, in exchange for giving out free ISBNs to all and sundry, the National Library and Archives gets at least one of everything that is assigned a number. That's no sweat for the big houses; they just lop off three copies from the first run and trundle them out the door to Ottawa.
But since I'm as far removed from them as possible, print on demand means never having to say your sorry for inflicting your tedious prose on an unsuspecting world as no copies are printed unless somebody buys one, and I won't be doing an initial run of 10,000. But it does mean I was forced to shell out $18.20, including shipping and dollar conversion, for one of my own books. Before you ask, I didn't collect a royalty payment out of that, that's just the printing and mailing costs for one book mailed from the United States to Canada.
I hate to think how much this thing would cost if it was a regular sale. I've asked for $6.50 payment for each book, figuring I'd sell them for between five and ten dollars on my own. On top of that Lulu.com adds their percentage, the set-up fee and printing costs of $7.49, and of course you then have to pay the shipping costs as well.
The full price of my book before shipping comes to $15.50 in American dollars, which isn't too bad for a trade paperback. Although the number of pages may not merit that cost, I thought I was being reasonable in what I wanted to charge. Unlike a regular book deal, where the author is paid an agreed amount up front then a percentage of sales, royalties, on top of that, I only get what I ask for.
Article comments