Moronic book "contributors"

[Bob Hritz]

I have mailed out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of items for inclusion in reference books. To date, I was given ONE book and that was from Marc Garlasco.

Of course, I do not beg for anything, but the FedEx charges and chances of losing items might be considered worth 'something'.

I an not so quick to help any more.

Bob Hritz

[Mark C. Yerger]

I have mailed out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of items for inclusion in reference books. To date, I was given ONE book and that was from Marc Garlasco.

Of course, I do not beg for anything, but the FedEx charges and chances of losing items might be considered worth 'something'.

I an not so quick to help any more.

Bob Hritz

My contributors do all with a simple scan by e-mail, then get credit ii the illustration, and in the acknowledgements, and a book copy. One of us must be hanging out with the wrong or "lesser" crowd. Maybe militaria book writing is different than history books as far as what is given, then expected in return. I'd think costs for physically loaning items would (should) be absorbed by the author. Common sense (and common courtesy).

[PZIV]

My contributors do all with a simple scan by e-mail, then get credit ii the illustration, and in the acknowledgements, and a book copy. One of us must be hanging out with the wrong or "lesser" crowd. Maybe militaria book writing is different than history books as far as what is given, then expected in return. I'd think costs for physically loaning items would (should) be absorbed by the author. Common sense (and common courtesy).

Seriously!

[pasoleati]

Going to self publishing might be a good idea, provided one has the capability of doing so. I know reasonably well a Finnish self publisher who got fed up with the quality control problems of his previous publishers. His products are top notch in terms of physical and content quality. The reason for this is that he does not cut corners. E.g. all imagery is scanned by professionals (not himself) using printing house quality scanners and software. This is unlike some self publishers who use $100 scanners and pretend to be experts of digital processing leading to lousy product quality.

As for crediting, I do believe that a free copy of a book for every contrubutor is financially far too great a demand. Proper credit and compensation for the direct cost (like postage and copying cost) of the material should do.

[FLiPSiDE]

This thread is very interesting... I have to say if all an author wanted from me was a couple of high res scans of photos I owned, I'd gladly provide them. However if you wanted to photograph a very rare and expensive item of mine, I can't say I'd be thrilled with the potential risk of loss in the mail and the expense of shipping without even being provided a free copy of the book. While a given item having an increase in value once a book is published is nice, IMO it is only temporary since specialized collecting books seem to go out of print after 5 or 10 years and after that obtaining a copy is not so easy to do... Also for a lifelong collector an increase in value may mean very little compared to the relative rarity of an item (since he may have no interest in selling).

Also can someone tell me why there would be a large amount of risk in self-publishing? I'm not expert but the way I understand it is you can order books published one at a time (drop-shipped right to the purchaser). There is a website that does this and it is quite popular but the name escapes me right now...

[pasoleati]

If one wishes top quality with your self publishing effort, one should stay away from these "one at a time" outlets and their digicrap.

[FLiPSiDE]

If one wishes top quality with your self publishing effort, one should stay away from these "one at a time" outlets and their digicrap.

I'm sure that is true for some but I've personally had wedding albums published for $25/per copy (granted only 20 pages or so) which were of excellent quality nice covers, etc. I guess if you are trying to turn a profit it's better to go the professional route but if you are just a knowledgeable collector wishing to share info than I see no problem with a lower quality publication.

[nutmeg]

The big problem with self publishing is of course you have to layout the cost for the books in advance. The bigger problem though is distribution and marketing, if you want to sell more than a handful you have to make dealers and collectors aware it's available. You also have to do tha packing and shipping and store all the books. You'll also be dealing with returned books and damaged copies.

Big publishers have all of this in place and can usually sell 10x the number of books you will. A drawback to regular publishers , if lucky you get 10% to 15% of the retail price. If unlucky its that against the wholesale price! One of the problems is that publishers allow book dealers often to return unsold copies after a certain amount of time, you lose again. There are pluses and minuses to either way, but self publishing can be a lot of work and time, more then you'll think.

[Mark C. Yerger]

The big problem with self publishing is of course you have to layout the cost for the books in advance. The bigger problem though is distribution and marketing, if you want to sell more than a handful you have to make dealers and collectors aware it's available. You also have to do tha packing and shipping and store all the books. You'll also be dealing with returned books and damaged copies.

Big publishers have all of this in place and can usually sell 10x the number of books you will. A drawback to regular publishers , if lucky you get 10% to 15% of the retail price. If unlucky its that against the wholesale price! One of the problems is that publishers allow book dealers often to return unsold copies after a certain amount of time, you lose again. There are pluses and minuses to either way, but self publishing can be a lot of work and time, more then you'll think.

all very true (my personal experience)