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Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

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Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#31

Post by AkirIkasu »

nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

You're missing a lot of the costs associated with publishing. You're completely omitting the costs of distrobution (which can be a fairly huge sum if you plan on having that book in stores) and marketing (which is going to be huge if you plan on having in stores, since you will want to sell a large volume of them).

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#32

Post by kasey_junk »

ouid wrote: post #26
nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

Are most books ever bought? I would assume that most books remain in inventory. Sitting on shelves forever.

Books in stores get shipped back to the publisher where they are pulped. That cost is also reflected in the price.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#33

Post by ci5er »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…

> I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process.

I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but you are insane.

I've written a couple for MK and SV and edited a few more conference books and a few more compilations of submitted chapters in an attempt to create a cogently thematic book, and I hated the world, everyone in it and myself. Never again.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#34

Post by tomcam »

MrMorden wrote: post #7
howfun wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?

The big caveat is that Amazon wants you to enroll in the Kindle Unlimited program—and they'll require exclusivity. This is, to be extremely generous, a bad idea for the author.

It is not a requirement of Amazon

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#35

Post by Finnucane »

nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

The thing is that a lot of the costs are fixed, up-front costs. Editorial, typesetting, proofreading, copyediting, other production costs (fees, permissions, etc. for art), sales and marketing costs (catalogs, advance copies, sales calls) are all incurred before copy 1 is printed. Marginal costs for a book that sells well is relatively small, though some expenses (retail coop payments, royalties) get a bigger budget when a book is a bestseller. A big-selling book is way more profitable than a midlist book, which might not even break even. Traditionally, backlist (where those fixed costs were amortized long ago) was also profitable for publishers, even at lower sales volumes, but it is not quite as good business these days. It's really true that bestsellers are like the hollywood summer 'tentpole' movies--they pay for everything else.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#36

Post by tacomonstrous »

tptacek wrote: post #11
joshvm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that and that their initial publishing offer (which is good? I have no experience) is more insulting the more you run through the numbers. On the other hand I've read accounts of people who've published through O'Reilly and were very happy with having a team of people to crunch through the layout, typesetting, etc.

It's insulting for Achatz and Kokanas, but the dirty secret of these advance deals is that while they're certainly tilted towards publishers, book publishing is a losers-pay-for-the-winners business. That doesn't make book writing for publishers a good deal for anyone, by the way. Executing on a book contract is one of the lower effort/reward things you can do.

You mean higher effort/reward? Otherwise, I'm confused.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#37

Post by nickkokonas »

ipqk wrote: post #22
nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

But that's the cost of just getting the books to your warehouse. There's the additional labor cost of unpacking them and individually shipping them, which is probably more than $3.83/book.

actually that part is easy. You can use a fulfillment company and the costs are known and passed to the consumer. We are using www.Blackbox.cool to do it this time around. Last time we used Warepak

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#38

Post by nickkokonas »

AkirIkasu wrote: post #31
nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

You're missing a lot of the costs associated with publishing. You're completely omitting the costs of distrobution (which can be a fairly huge sum if you plan on having that book in stores) and marketing (which is going to be huge if you plan on having in stores, since you will want to sell a large volume of them).

both of those costs are mitigated today. Marketing through social media channels is very cost effective. Amazon controls about 2/3rds of all book sales so go on there. And fulfillment and inventory is easily handled at a fixed cost per book by a third party... we're using www.blackbox.cool

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#39

Post by kevinmchugh »

nickkokonas wrote: post #12

Always exciting to get something up on the hacker news board... weekly reader here for a long time. Happy to answer any questions you may have. -- Nick

What drove the decision to forgo a recipe tester? Is it at all driven by the target audience? Will the new book have a professional tester, or does the subject matter make a tester even less necessary?

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#40

Post by mark_l_watson »

howfun wrote: post #3
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…

When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?

Sure, it is an easy process but you get a lower royalty from Amazon if you are not exclusive for them. My books sell better on lean pub, but I have also started publishing via the Kindle platform.
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