Exactly! If nothing else it shows poor planning on behalf of the publisher. It just seems like a shifty practice to me.
And if we're gonna' make the jump from 26 to 52 copies why shouldn't a publisher do a lettered with 78 copies or104 or....? Any number of lettered copies? There are only 26 letters.
I understand what you're saying (and knew that ahead of time, of course), but such considerations have never been a factor in my decision to buy a particular book or not.
I've never really understood that aspect of collecting. Yeah, it's neat to have one of only X copies of something, but if I buy a particular edition of a book, I buy it because it's what I want. I don't buy it with an eye toward how much it might be worth down the road. The book is only worth whatever it's worth to me and whatever I can get someone to pay me for it later. I learned many years ago that that $50 signed book may never sell at all, much less sell for $50 or more.
I buy the books I buy because they make me happy and I like to look at them. I have no doubt that when I die, the vast majority of my collection won't bring any money at all---certainly not as much as I've spent collecting it all over the years. But I'm OK with that, because it makes me happy now.
And I've heard from several people who were at work during the three-hour window from the announcement to the sell-out of the 26 copies and are elated that they were able to purchase the leatherbound edition. I can't speak for Subterranean, but I would assume that's the reason the print-run was changed.
Hunter
And I'm not saying you should. That's one of the things I wanted to point out with my lengthy postOriginally Posted by goathunter
it's not about an increase in print run affecting the resale value. Most of us couldn't care less about what a book sells for in the future. Like you say, we buy a book because we want that particular edition.
In this case it's all about paying for a certain expectation/promise and then having 'the man' stick it to you.
For many years Dark Harvest put their Lettered Editions in wooden cases. I have some by Ray Garton, Fritz Leiber, and John Farris.
I'm not doubting that there is a market for the book in hardcover, it would just suck to have a competing limited edition.Over the years, I've received email from hundreds, if not thousands, of people who hope they do. The Dark Harvest limited was issues more than 21 years ago, and the book has found many new fans since then. At this time, Simon & Schuster own the print rights to Swan Song....
I'd rather see someone buy the rights to reproduce the trade edition of the Dark Harvest edition. That way new fans are happy, and long time collectors who made the investment 21 years ago are happy.
None of this is really relevant though, as a few complaints here or there aren't going to impact the author's decision to re-release the books or not.
Thank you, Michaël. That is exactly the point I was trying to make, though I was being much less concise that you were.True! But collectors (who are the target audience for any type of limited edition, really) are not only paying lots of dollars for the quality of the production (high production costs) but also for the quantity (small print run). Resale value has nothing to do with it because collectors don't buy books with the sole purpose of reselling. Collectors are prepared to pay a certain price for the lettered edition because it's well-crafted but also because there are only a certain number of copies issued. When you preorder a book and decide to hand over x-hundred bucks for a book that (so you are assured) only 26 people will have in their collection, it's quite dissappointing when you subsequently hear that the size of the print run will be increased. Sure, the production quality remains the same but the limitation (which is an important reason for people to dish out extra cash for a lettered edition) is altered. It seems logical to me that this should be reflected in the issue price.
Of course, I'm not really serious about decreasing the price with 50% but I think there should be some kind of compensation. Especially since the size of the print run was increased as a sort of afterthought. Otherwise people could have decided not to take out their wallet in the first place, when weighing the issue price against a limitation of 52 instead of 26 copies.
Sometimes when publishers increase the print run they say it's because they 'want to give more people/collectors the opportunity to buy the numbered or lettered or whatever edition' but I think that's nonsense. If you want a lot of people to buy a book, then don't publish a limited edition. It's called limited for a reason!
Whether it is a lettered going from 26 to 52, or a standard S/L going from 200 to 400 -- when I buy the book, a rather significant part of the purchase for me is being one of X/XXX people to own said book. When that print run is increased, while I suffered no material damage, I still feel that my special place in the collecting world has been devalued some. I just wish limited edition publishers would stick with the advertised print run. When an increase is made, I have a hard time believing that their bottom line isn't the key factor in the decision. Not that they just want to "share the book" with more collectors.
I agree completely.
Also even if I never intend to sell (I've never sold a book) someone likely is going to eventually. If and when that happens and there is no or less demand for them it just might have something to do with the people who made the decision to money grab by increasing the production under the specious claim of sharing the sligtly less limited item.
Again, this is in no way an attack on the author, simply on observation/opinion of a book collector on publisher etiquette (or the lack thereof).
I'm not sure how I feel about this.
To me - the bottem line is the product, not how many of a particular edition have been published.
If I like what I see, I go for it. The fact that I'm only one out of 26 or 52 or 10.000 doesn't really concern me.
Three more McCammon hardcovers. Two from the UK, one US edition:
Blue World is a collection of short stories - I LOVED it.
There happens to be one for sale here (BIN £150), with an added dust jacket. Nice! I hadn't seen this one before! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Robert-McCammo...item2eb1b06584
BM9VuSCZLw~~0_12.JPG)
Everyone has their own reasons for collecting and I'm not arguing that. But surely the price, retail wise even, reflects the limitation in some regards. We all know that the traycase and the leather doesn't cost SubPress an extra $175 dollars for the McCammon book in question. And it really didn't cost them $705 dollars more for the Fifty-to-One title being discussed in another thread. As much as I don't like to admit it, price is a function of scarcity, not production values. I know many (most?) of us like to think we have have a "unique" collection. The SK proof market is a prime example of that. The price sure isn't driven by production values there...
Anyway, I'll leave it at that. It's just my final two cents, and I again want to reiterate that I'm not disparaging anyone else's opinion either.
P.S. I like your books!
I don't even think of it in terms of resale value, production costs, publisher profits or whatever. From this collector's perspective, I saw an offer for a limited edition (of 26 lettered copies) of a book by an author I really like and collect. I ordered a copy immediately and was pleasantly surprised to see that the edition had sold out in a matter of hours. Not only had I secured one of the 26 copies but I had also secured first refusal rights to subsequent lettered editions. I felt like I had "won" another event in this book collecting madness. My obsession and way too many hours on the internet had paid off once again. When I saw that the edition had subsequently doubled in size my first thought was "Well, shit!"
I have no real problem with the publisher's decision to do this. I really like Sub Press and buy a lot of Sub Press books. It is their decision to make. All I can say is that from a collector's viewpoint the doubling of the edition size made my "win" seem a lot less enjoyable. It took a lot of fun out it for me.
I had always assumed that the contract with the author regarding the quantities of signed books, numbered and lettered, spelled such numbers out. If the contract specified 26 lettered editions, then that was the number. If the publisher wants to publish an additional number, should the contract allow this?
John
I'm not a lawyer but an agreement between two parties can very easily be amended if both parties agree to the change. In this case the change would likely result in more book sales and, therefore, increased profits for both the author and publisher. I suspect that an agreement, in this case, was very easily reached.
Sub Press: Hey, McCammon! You want to sell some more books and make some more money?
McCammon: Sure, I guess.
Sub Press: Gonna double the size of the lettered edition. You on board?
McCammon: Sure, I guess.
Sub Press: OK. It's done. Let's do lunch.
John
One of the few days lately I wasn't on the computer all day and I missed it. I was pleased when the lettered was doubled. I do however understand the feelings expressed here.
Some nice Michael Crichton items offered by this eBay seller:
*edit* the seller is open to reasonable offers and ending the auctions early, by the way.
LOST WORLD proof (not ARC)
LOST WORLD manuscript proof
AIRFRAME manuscript proof
Regarding the doubling of print runs for lettered, CD did the same thing with The Passage. I got in on the original 26, and it was only a few months later when I went back to check on status that I saw it had been doubled to 52. I wasn't irate, but I was pretty damn irked; not so much as an e-mail from them explaining that the printing was going to be doubled, and hey, since you spent $500 based on a run of 26 do you still want it for a run of 52? I wrote, and of course the answer was basically "based on overwhelming response, we've doubled it to give more collectors an opportunity to own this edition". Well shit, that's great for those second 26 collectors but not so much for the first 26. Price was the same for the second batch as well, and no offer of a price cut or any other compensation to the first 26.
I didn't like the way it all went down, and let them know ... doesn't seem like good business practice to me, and I'm sure if I were the legal eagle type I'd have a good case for false advertising or sales fraud or something like that. Then again, if I was one of the second 26 I'm sure I'd be happy as a clam and be showering them with praise.
But what exactly did CD think was going to happen? How often to you really see a lettered print run of only 26? Either way, I gave my input to them, for what it was worth, and stressed to Mindy that I'd damn well better be getting a single letter; she assured me that I was. I haven't checked, but they likely did the same before and will likely do it again. It all wouldn't have been so bad if I'd just received a courtesy e-mail explaining what they were doing, giving me the option of bailing or staying with it (I'm sure the stand-by list was lengthy enough that they didn't have to worry about not selling the book), and maybe offering an incentive (price cut, free shipping, whatever) due to the changes. It's all about good customer relations, and this wasn't it.
Do I sound pissed? Sorry, backlash from missing out on Biomieg's Plume Proof Gunslinger today by minutes; I hate being 2nd.
It would sure annoy me heaps, Im not one who gives any thought to how scarce an item is, I just care about how good the story is, how well the books made and the overall price.
I would just be mad as hell because whatever way you look at it it's still a dirty underhand trick to pull to all the people who signed up when there was only 26 of them to suddenly find the publisher has gone and slyly (yes it is slyly when you don't even get an email to tell you) doubled the limitation, then when they come out with nonsense about how it's because of overwhelming demand (they know beforehand what the demand would be like) that would just make my blood boil, how dumb do they think collectors are?, if it wasn't about making more money then all the first batch of customers would get a nice partial refund seeing as the publisher isn't honouring their original deal.
Darn! That's one I've been looking for for a long time. Darn!backlash from missing out on Biomieg's Plume Proof Gunslinger today by minutes; I hate being 2nd.
John
Newest (and smallest recently) S/L by Dan Simmons is announced by SubPress. I'm tempted but will pass. I feel the price is a bit much for a book that appears to have no internal art or slipcase. So go get 'em, Simmons fans!
http://subterraneanpress.com/index.p...-of-flashback/
Disclaimer: The following continue to beats a dead horse:
This particular price model also supports my disagreement with the limitation size / price conflict. SP is clearly pricing the book higher due to it's tiny print run, but they don't price books lower when other print runs are "unexpectedly" increased.
That does seem too pricey. I'll pass, although I'm a bit of a Dan Simmons fan.
John
Very tempting.
Did he have the proof with the orange wrappers? All I see listed (now sold) is the one with the variant pictorial cover.
Do I sound pissed? Sorry, backlash from missing out on Biomieg's Plume Proof Gunslinger today by minutes; I hate being 2nd.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
