Anthology stuff...

[ellenmillion]

An enthusiastic art store owner here in Anchorage REALLY liked the anthology, but declined to carry it in their store because of the expense. This is not the first time I've gotten that story, and it's making me take a good, tough look at it.

(Actually, first it made me think dire, failure!-horrible-wretched-self-pitying thoughts. Then I made myself claw tooth and nail for perspective and mostly got there. It helped that she was really supportive about it and had only a few minor suggestions that all twisted right back into expense [namely that it would be cooler if the color pages were more evenly distributed instead of in a chunk, which was done to keep expenses DOWN. My judgment call there to keep the cost down, while correct, was not enough.]. She was very kind and wished me lots of luck with it - and you could tell it wasn't empty 'sorry hon, not up to par' stuff, just a hard money choice.)

This is a scale of economy issue that probably all small press faces. The smaller the press, the worse the problem, of course.

This hasn't put me off of putting out the next anthology, nor have the generally slow sales, but it HAS made me think about the costs of it a lot harder.

A LOT harder.

(For those of you that are newish to my LJ, I speak of the 2006 EMG-Zine anthology, a compilation of the highlights of EMG-Zine.)

[Additional sidenote: zine is pronounced ZEEN. As in, short for electronic magaZINE.]

The first thing that gets my critical look is the artwork and fiction section in the center. I'm considering cutting it entirely. It's the bulk of the cost (because of the color!) and about 25% of the page count. That contributes a LOT to the cost of the book.

22% of the retail price goes to the contributors. I've already cut wholesale royalties to 11% of the wholesale price, and I'm still only 40% under retail with my pricing - I'm making next to nothing on them and it's not as attractive as a straight 50% off. I don't really want to pay artists less.

If I cut the book to 100 pages (or under), and chop the color section to just a few pages, I might be able to wholesale a $20 book for $10, instead of a $30 book for $18. That's a lot more attractive in a whole lot of ways.

Some of you good folks actually bought the thing - what are your thoughts? Was the fiction and artwork a highlight of the book or just a distraction? Were the non-fiction parts too dense and picture-less? I already know that the lack of index was bad and intend to fix that, and the section dividers were ugly and uninspired (they had to be changed at the last moment because I found out they wouldn't be full bleed at the last second [after the proofs!], and by that point I'd been trying to print the book for 6 bloody months and was ready to pitch the whole project out the window...).

I'm about to power into the next one, because Ellen Doesn't Give Up, and I'd like to learn from any mistakes I made and do this one better.

Even if you didn't purchase it, knowing why is valuable (I'll bet dollars to dishes it's because of the price...), and knowing what you WOULD look for, and how much you WOULD buy it for is worth a lot to me. Email if you'd prefer!

Honestly, it was a pretty bad year for publications for me - the last two coloring books flopped, to my surprise, making Ursula's calendar possibly NSFW was a TERRIBLE idea and I'm going to lose a lot of money on it, and when you weigh that against the gawdawful time I had with Avalon and Comixpress, it's really making me think again about that whole aspect of EMG. I'm not down yet, but boy, I'm getting tired of the taste of dirt...

Also, if you've read and/or enjoyed the last issue of EMG-Zine, please let me know! It'd be great to get some feedback on the changes we made for 2008!

Now, I'm going to go watch Stardust with Jen and then go to bed...

Comments

[selinafenech.livejournal.com]

I really liked the anthology. I think you're right about the changes though. For me, I wasn't so interested in the art & fiction section... I was after it for all the juicy tutorials and info! So if you can save money by cutting it, and then just putting in one or two other colour pages through the articles that'd work really well I think (and on that topic, I thought the articles and their graphics were already really nicely laid out).
I'm struggling with the cost vs sales vs quanity issues as well at the moment with the greeting cards range I do for artists. It's such a pain.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by your zine and will take a closer look when I have time. What can be bought with the credit, by the way? Art prints? The anthology?

As for the anthology, I'd say drop the colorplates. They're nice, but they're pricing you out of the market. If you can do B/W artwork cheaper, include some of that. Rather than cutting out fiction altogether, I'd suggest dropping the word count overall and making proportionate cuts in each category of text. It sounds like the kind of book I'd enjoy, and I'm a reviewer, if that helps.

Re: Thoughts

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Available for purchase with credit: portrait adoptions, gift shop goodies (170 artists, 1205 designs, tons of products, even some soaps and fake ears and lip gloss), print services, or anything at my own (desperately in need of an update!) site. Basically, any of my projects!

I'd love to have you review a copy - what does that entail? (A copy of the book, clearly, but are there other steps to take?)

[valdary.livejournal.com]

I thought the art and fiction section was gorgeous, and judging by the reactions I got when I took the book out with me on some poetry readings, it would be well worth it for the artists concerned to get hold of a copy for their portfolio.

Obviously that's the bit that costs the most, but it was the only part of the book that non artists were interested at looking in. If you think that its only artists that will buy it then by all means cut that section, but if you cut it completely you may then find that the general public are then not interested.

My own opinion is that the cover is a slight disadvantage, beautiful as the image, is it is rather pinker in colour than a lot of males would be comfortable in buying for themselves and at first glance with the hanging heart it looks very much like a self help romance book "How to dowse for love" or some such. I love the image the cover is based on, but I don't hink it looks like an art book.

I love my copy and personally I would be more likely to buy 2007 with the art than without.

I suppose doing it print on demand with a comapny like Lulu would make it too expensive per copy and not allow for bleed? It would be one possible way to still make it available but shift the some of the upfront cost off your shoulders (though you would probably need to pay rent on an account). I printed my poetry book on Cafepress, which didn't actually cost me anything because I was already making enough from my shop to cover the rental and putting it up there was no extra, but Cafepress won't do colour pages and if I was setting up from scratch would cost just under $6 a month.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

All the print-on-demand options I looked at were even more outrageously priced for something of this size and complexity. Thanks for the input - I'm seriously thinking that these need to be two separate books... one which has JUST art and fiction, and one which is just the business/technical end of things, as they seem to be hitting two different target audiences, and neither one is willing to spend the extra money on something that's only half of what they want.

[baba-studio.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to suggest. Small press publishing is a notoriously impossible business. We actually make a fraction of what people assume on our decks (I mean, we get so little back from the distributors and out of that we have had to pay all production and marketing costs and all shipping that the "profit" on most wholesale/distributor sales becomes a joke).

I heard that the US Publishers' Association (sorry, I can't remember their name, but they are a trade organisation for small presses) are now advising people NOT to go into the business at all. Which is depressing.

I would just be very wary. You may be better expanding other types of product.

[baba-studio.livejournal.com]

Just to add that I hope that wasn't too much of a downer. I don't know the inside of your business of course, so I may be wrong.

If ever you want to email me offline about any of this you're very welcome of course. Though I don't really have any answers to suggest.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Not too much of a downer at all! I appreciate frank how-it-is talk to false hope any day. It's true, and I shall certainly go forward with open eyes! Thanks!

[thrivis.livejournal.com]

If I were able to buy anything (I am a jobless student, atm ^^;), I would want something with a lot of both articles and art/fiction, because I like the art and fiction as much as the tutorials and informative articles, but I know I'm probably in the minority on that. ^^;

Reading over what was said about the book... It sounds like making two books rather than one big one might be a better way to hit all of the audiences that are interested. "Articles" volume and a "Gallery" volume to each edition so you can give the art afficionados their art and fiction, and the artists their industry/tutorial info.

I think the price is great as it is now for all the stuff in it, but not everyone is getting just the stuff they like, I guess, not making it worth it for them.

[mercurialmind.livejournal.com]

Ellen... out of curiosity, and feel free to tell me to bugger off and mind my own business...how long does it take you to put together an issue of EMG online, and then transfer it to the print anthology?

It seems to me that it might be easier if EMG was a downloadable .pdf file, laid out like a magazine. Then transferring the files to the anthology would be a snap, since they'd already be laid out and you wouldn't have to do all the work twice.

Something else to think about: what about putting parts of the anthology (the parts that might be too expensive to print) on an included DVD? Burning the DVDs would probably be less expensive (and time intensive) than printing the books, and you can get label printers for DVDs to make them look nice, and plastic inserts to hold them that will glue into the print version. Maybe use the DVDs for exclusive content, available only to purchasers? Extra incentive to buy.

I have some experience with doing layouts for stuff like this (.pdfs especially). If you'd be interested, I could maybe do a mockup for you, using the current issue of EMG online for content. No redistribution or anything, it'd be for your eyes only, to gauge whether or not you'd be interested.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

The actual layout for the 'zine now is fairly easy - the backend does most of the work! I hatehatehatehate pdf downloads, so I will avoid them until readers actually step up and say they want the option (in which case it will still be only an option), but I totally appreciate the suggestion! Keep 'em comin'. And if you think you can win me over with a seriously awesome mockup, I'd definitely take a peek.

I can't give any information about laying out the next anthology yet - I did the last one individual page by individual page in Photoshop, and the text-y pages were done in Open Office, which, bless it, is free, but horribly clunky, unhelpful and FRUSTRATING to stitch together into multi-section files. I've got InDesign now, and will never go through that again.

I LOVE the DVD idea. I will definitely poke at that as an option... What file format would you use on it? A PDF file? It would be nice and allow me to use some of the articles that folks haven't saved high-res files for, making them useless for printing.