Publishing/printing a book

I asked a friend who had published more than a few books. Last one being rural white rage if he would be willing to talk with you. He will be in his car from 10-4 tomorrow travelling. He said sure give him a call
 
My dad and uncle spent their summers in the fifties and sixties working the boathouse at the Word of Life Camp on Schroon Lake.

They built a lot of the infrastructure on the island and had wild stories about how it was accomplished. Raising telephone poles by hand, driving trucks full of sand across the frozen lake in the winter and dumping it on the ice to make the beach.

In the fall they would pull the motors out of the wood boats and sink them in the houses for storage to keep the wood swelled.

You’ve got to be a Jack of all trades to build and maintain a camp, especially when it’s on an island. The boathouse is the central hub.
 
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D.B. Cooper said:
I've written a book and am looking to see if anyone has experience in that field, whether self published or published through someone else. I'm aware of some of the benefits and drawbacks, but am looking for how to approach a publisher and what led to your success (or lack thereof).
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The self-publishing route was relatively straight forward even almost twenty years ago when my mother wrote a book about her father that was mostly for my generation to understand his impact from a historical context. It ended up a 5x7 format hardback. As I remember we had 100 copies made. Needed about 40 to distribute to old friends and relatives. Given the price break points, made sense to print more.

Even though all we did was embed some picture files into a MS Word document, they came out far better than I expected. Having some family pictures was a late decision.

Have vague memories that coming up with the "art" for the cover and spine took more effort than I expected.
 
I work in the book business (retail side of things). You are going to have a hard time finding a publisher that would be willing to print a minimum print run of a specialty title. Every year, more and more smaller publishers close up shop and the self-publishing market picks up the slack. Major publishers only want big print runs and guaranteed (to the greatest extent possible) likelihood of selling through print runs.

I'd recommend you research local interest publishers that specialize in local history. Arcadia Publishing and The History Press are the two publishers I know that are in this sphere. I am not sure if they do coffee table books (I've never seen one from them). I think getting a publisher interested in this type of thing as a coffee table book is going to be challenging.

You need to figure out what the publisher wants to hear. Who is going to distribute it and who is going to buy it and is it worth their investing resources, is it worth a minimum printing. Will retailers actually want to carry it? Its getting harder and harder to sell books every year, publishers want certainty, to the greatest extent possible. Retail store managers don't want to buy stock that just sits on their shelves (local interest titles usually do...).

I suspect you'd have better luck with the self-publishing route. Though, if you want a quality product, you need to be careful. Self published print-on-demand books have improved in quality in recent years. But I can still instantly tell the difference between print-on-demand self -published books and books with actual print runs. Quality coffee table style is probably going to limit your choices and significantly increase the cost, to the point it may be hard to get people to buy it.
 
Ripitz said:
My dad and my uncle spent their summers in the fifties and sixties working the boathouse at the Word of Life Camp on Schroon Lake.

They built a lot of the infrastructure on the island and had wild stories about how it was accomplished. Raising telephone poles by hand, driving trucks full of sand across the frozen lake in the winter and dumping it on the ice to make the beach.

In the fall they would pull the motors out of the wood boats and sink them in the houses for storage to keep the wood swelled.

You’ve got to be a Jack of all trades to build and maintain a camp, especially when it’s on an island.
Click to expand...

One of my friends did construction up here. He built a few camps on Lake Placid. Moving construction material and people by boat added significantly to his costs. Had to be really sharp with the budget.
 
riverc0il said:
I work in the book business (retail side of things). You are going to have a hard time finding a publisher that would be willing to print a minimum print run of a specialty title. Every year, more and more smaller publishers close up shop and the self-publishing market picks up the slack. Major publishers only want big print runs and guaranteed (to the greatest extent possible) likelihood of selling through print runs.

I'd recommend you research local interest publishers that specialize in local history. Arcadia Publishing and The History Press are the two publishers I know that are in this sphere. I am not sure if they do coffee table books (I've never seen one from them). I think getting a publisher interested in this type of thing as a coffee table book is going to be challenging.

You need to figure out what the publisher wants to hear. Who is going to distribute it and who is going to buy it and is it worth their investing resources, is it worth a minimum printing. Will retailers actually want to carry it? Its getting harder and harder to sell books every year, publishers want certainty, to the greatest extent possible. Retail store managers don't want to buy stock that just sits on their shelves (local interest titles usually do...).

I suspect you'd have better luck with the self-publishing route. Though, if you want a quality product, you need to be careful. Self published print-on-demand books have improved in quality in recent years. But I can still instantly tell the difference between print-on-demand self -published books and books with actual print runs. Quality coffee table style is probably going to limit your choices and significantly increase the cost, to the point it may be hard to get people to buy it.
Click to expand...
That's kind of the reason for the handful of copies at the start, to have something tangible to pitch. Your post is very helpful!
 
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