Andre Norton Forum

A Not So Modest Prop... Possibility

: 1955 Yankie Privateer : 1970 Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures : 1981 Maid at Arms (Enid Cushing) : 1981 Star Ka'at and The Winged Warriors

There appear to be quite a few Out of Print Andre Norton books, which are not "mainstream SF&F" for one reason or another. Never mind the Star Ka'at books, those are better left to others. It is unlikely, under present market conditions, that they'll be reprinted anytime soon.

It is POSSIBLE ... and, for ghu's sake, don't anyone post about this elsewhere or say anyone is actually doing it, or otherwise get me in trouble ... but it is POSSIBLE to get these books reprinted. What I'm saying it is POSSIBLE to do is for "US" to do it.

Well, me and someone else with a nice Independent Press that I can piggy back on ... MAYBE. It costs about $20,000 to $25,000 per title, maybe a little less, maybe as little as $15,000. This is a print run of about 3000 nice but not super fancy hard bound copies. More or less. Maybe. Like I said, please do NOT post this anywhere else or repeat it as other than "it's possible."

That includes the Advance to the Author(s) and the Artist and everything up to the point they arrive at a warehouse "somewhere in GA." Now you're going, "Gee, that's only a maximum of $8.33 a book..." Well, figure some retailers will get 40% of cover price and wholesalers and/or other distributor get 20%. So $8.33 only equals 40% of the cover price. And there's freight, etc. etc. So we're talking a cover price of about $21.00. Ah, so ... that means it's "about what the market is at, now."

However that doesn't cover much, if any, for publicity. On the other hand, figure "we" would sell 2000 of those copies to libraries (which requires some special effort, but such as "we" could almost certainly do). The other 1000 would almost entirely go to specialty stores, out via the web, etc.

This is NOT a really difficult thing. It does take some real work and ... $15,000 to $25,000 per title. And virtually no profit. Well, OK, maybe at $23 a book, there's $3000 profit per title. Maybe. Someday. When they all sell ... and payment shows up. Which leaves us right in the ballpark for what hard backs like this go for. And, if it goes into a 2nd print run, then the author sees some harder cash, the artist gets a bit, and "we" would as well.

So far, like I keep saying, this is just a possibility. I "think" I, personally, might someday be able to do ONE of these . (When I mentioned details, here, once, it got out, and got me in trouble.)

Now ... there is such a thing as borrowing money ... and there is such a thing as investing money that would otherwise have gone to pay for expensive OOP titles. And "investors" and workers OF COURSE would get a copy themselves ... maybe even signed ... as part of the $15k to $25k cost.

Anyway, while we're talking SERIOUS money and effort here, I have some reason to believe that there may be enough money available from a few members of this message board to do one or more titles. Anyone who is willing and able to come up with ... let's call it at least $500, but preferably $1000, please email me with "how much," and any questions, comments.

If there's enough interest, "we" can proceed. If not, save your money and buy scarce OOP books. Also ... note that if this DOES GO, there will be almost NO FURTHER POSTS about it, here or anywhere (unless there's another venue such as this that's worth ONE message like this), until and unless there's a signed contract with our favorite author. This is, despite being "fan funded," a fairly serious business.

But it is practical.