Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 14:03:48 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Mighty hammer of Thor, was:Re: Future Washington Anthology
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>kfl at KeithLynch.net 04/03/04 01:33PM
>>Michael Walsh wrote:
>>
>> Speaking of such, I am amused to note that Jayson Blair's book (he,
>> the disgraced NY Times scribe who recieved a 7 figure advance for
>> the book), well the book in it's first week of publication has sold
>> . . . 1386 copies out the quarter million printrun.
>
>Am I missing something?  1386 copies sold in a week means a quarter
>million copies will be sold in 3.5 years.

No one will care in one year.
Some books publishers keep in print "forever" . . .some have the life of a =
mayfly.

 Not great, but not terrible
>either.

It is terrible - in the book biz.
Look at the sales of Richard Clark'e book.

In general for random non-fiction 15,000 or so would be a decent print run =
(that is from a NYC "trade house".)

At JHUP we sweat bullets over a 5000 copy initial printing of a book.

Of course rate of sales will fall off with time, but so what
>if it takes twice as long to sell all the copies?  How much does it
>cost to store a book in a warehouse for a year, anyway?  I would
>imagine it would take decades before the cost of storing a book
>exceeds what the book can eventually be sold for.

See: <http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/depts/gvg02.htm>. <http://www.sfwa.org/bull=
etin/articles/thor.htm>
Google "Thor Power Tool" publishing

OTOH (isn't there always an OTOH ?) google groups this:
author:pnh at panix.com thor power
for two messages from Patrick Nielsen Hayden on the subject.

All of which, for some reason, brings to mind Warren Zevon . . .
"Send lawyers, guns and money..."

mjw
>
>Aren't we still storing some WSFA Press books from more than a decade
>ago?  I've heard no suggestion that we toss them in a dumpster, or
>even that we sell them at half price.

Creative accounting?

Speaking of WSFA Press books . . .
Y'know, maybe we should a little more proactive . . .
Put 'em on the website and offer them for sale.

Of course that raises an number of other problems . . .

mjw

>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
>