Cemetery Dance discussion thread

[Sir_Boomme]

I've got a question for Brian, and sorry if someone has already asked this one before in the past, but how many publisher's copies of the Lettered editions does Cemetery Dance produce? A few years back I purchased a PC copy of the Lettered edition of Cemetery Dance's From a Buick 8 from Barry at Gauntlet Press. Barry's a very nice guy, but man can he talk. I called to finalize the details of my purchase and he kept me on the phone for over an hour, during which time I maybe got five or ten words in. At least he's passionate about what he does! ;-)

Anyways, I remember that he mentioned that he had some sort of a reciprocal agreement with Cemetery Dance in which he sent them free copies of his Lettered editions and they sent him free copies of theirs. This makes me curious as to how many additional Lettered copies are produced beyond the stated 52. I realize that some are given to the author and artist, other publishers, and that some additional copies must be made for those that are damaged by UPS during shipping, so maybe Brian can shed some light on roughly how many additional copies are produced.

Barry definitely is passionate about publishing and collecting, isn't he?

There is no exact number of extras that are produced because each project is different, but we generally print 10 to 20 extra signature sheets for the Lettered Edition so that the author, artist, agent, Richard, etc, all get copies, and so that we have a few on hand in case UPS decides to back over a package with a truck -- like they just did this week with someone's copy of Legacies!

Not all of those sheets always get bound into actual books because sometimes we don't need that many extras, and sometimes the printer will mangle a sheet or two if they're machine tipping them. On the other hand, there could be a few more than that printed, of course, because some authors contractually require more copies.

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around....
sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

[Randall Flagg]

I've got a question for Brian, and sorry if someone has already asked this one before in the past, but how many publisher's copies of the Lettered editions does Cemetery Dance produce? A few years back I purchased a PC copy of the Lettered edition of Cemetery Dance's From a Buick 8 from Barry at Gauntlet Press. Barry's a very nice guy, but man can he talk. I called to finalize the details of my purchase and he kept me on the phone for over an hour, during which time I maybe got five or ten words in. At least he's passionate about what he does! ;-)

Anyways, I remember that he mentioned that he had some sort of a reciprocal agreement with Cemetery Dance in which he sent them free copies of his Lettered editions and they sent him free copies of theirs. This makes me curious as to how many additional Lettered copies are produced beyond the stated 52. I realize that some are given to the author and artist, other publishers, and that some additional copies must be made for those that are damaged by UPS during shipping, so maybe Brian can shed some light on roughly how many additional copies are produced.

Barry definitely is passionate about publishing and collecting, isn't he?

There is no exact number of extras that are produced because each project is different, but we generally print 10 to 20 extra signature sheets for the Lettered Edition so that the author, artist, agent, Richard, etc, all get copies, and so that we have a few on hand in case UPS decides to back over a package with a truck -- like they just did this week with someone's copy of Legacies!

Not all of those sheets always get bound into actual books because sometimes we don't need that many extras, and sometimes the printer will mangle a sheet or two if they're machine tipping them. On the other hand, there could be a few more than that printed, of course, because some authors contractually require more copies.

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around....
sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

Save them for 20 years and then bind them up and sell them-similar to your "E" copies of The Plant

[Bev Vincent]

Brian uses them to wallpaper his office.

[carlosdetweiller]

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around....
sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

They could do what Gauntlet does. Wait until the trade edition comes out, loosely lay them in to the books and sell them for a $100 mark up. Wait.....I just had an idea.....send them all to Glenn Chadbourne and have him draw little pictures on them.

[Brian James Freeman]

Cemetery Dance is selling some Glenn Chadbourne art prints from SOD II - The Monkey that were part of a promotion. Did anyone receive any of these previously? I am wondering what the size of the prints are. Thanks.

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_glnart14

I can measure them and post the sizes tomorrow. Thanks for asking!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

[Brian James Freeman]

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around.... sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

We just keep them stored in a safe place because there's nothing really to be "done" with them, but I can't imagine throwing them out, either. It's quite the autograph collection!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

[Sir_Boomme]

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around.... sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

We just keep them stored in a safe place because there's nothing really to be "done" with them, but I can't imagine throwing them out, either. It's quite the autograph collection!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

yeah... a special bound limited edition of 4? 5? of CD signatures from the past 20 years, of course.... keep me in mind for that one.

[carlosdetweiller]

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around.... sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

We just keep them stored in a safe place because there's nothing really to be "done" with them, but I can't imagine throwing them out, either. It's quite the autograph collection!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

yeah... a special bound limited edition of 4? 5? of CD signatures from the past 20 years, of course.... keep me in mind for that one.

With optional Chadbourne drawings, of course.

[Stockerlone]

Last year i missed Complete MASTERS OF DARKNESS signed extra sheets...
39 signatures for 50 $$$

[lophophoras]

Hmmm.....

I am sure that if you were ever to put the sig sheets together in sets to sell you would have every collector in here biting at their bits to get a copy...

[Brice]

Brian how do you at CD decide which books get numbered and the one that do not get numbered like this one Picking the Bones? It would be nice if all of them got numbered. I was wondering just how that progress works.
Thank you Brian,
Lost

Thanks for asking! It mostly depends on the print run and the expected audience for the book. For example, we usually hand number anything with print runs less than 750 because those are books that we expect will mostly sell to established collectors. (Some special projects above 750 also get hand numbered, such as Stephen King: The Non-Fiction, The Dark Tower Concordance, etc.) For the most part, we don't hand number the larger print runs where we expect a large percentage of the sales to be to distributors and libraries. I hope this information helps!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

I'll hand number EVERY book you print for one copy of the same.

[Merlin1958]

Brian how do you at CD decide which books get numbered and the one that do not get numbered like this one Picking the Bones? It would be nice if all of them got numbered. I was wondering just how that progress works.
Thank you Brian,
Lost

Thanks for asking! It mostly depends on the print run and the expected audience for the book. For example, we usually hand number anything with print runs less than 750 because those are books that we expect will mostly sell to established collectors. (Some special projects above 750 also get hand numbered, such as Stephen King: The Non-Fiction, The Dark Tower Concordance, etc.) For the most part, we don't hand number the larger print runs where we expect a large percentage of the sales to be to distributors and libraries. I hope this information helps!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

I'll hand number EVERY book you print for one copy of the same.

Ooh!! Ooh!!! Me Too!!! Me Too!!!!

[Brian James Freeman]

Cemetery Dance is selling some Glenn Chadbourne art prints from SOD II - The Monkey that were part of a promotion. Did anyone receive any of these previously? I am wondering what the size of the prints are. Thanks.

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_glnart14

These are all 8.5 X 11.

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

[Tito_Villa]

Yeah i ordered 2 to put in with my SOD V2 S/L's , i love Chadbourne's colour work!

[Brice]

Brian how do you at CD decide which books get numbered and the one that do not get numbered like this one Picking the Bones? It would be nice if all of them got numbered. I was wondering just how that progress works.
Thank you Brian,
Lost

Thanks for asking! It mostly depends on the print run and the expected audience for the book. For example, we usually hand number anything with print runs less than 750 because those are books that we expect will mostly sell to established collectors. (Some special projects above 750 also get hand numbered, such as Stephen King: The Non-Fiction, The Dark Tower Concordance, etc.) For the most part, we don't hand number the larger print runs where we expect a large percentage of the sales to be to distributors and libraries. I hope this information helps!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

I'll hand number EVERY book you print for one copy of the same.

Ooh!! Ooh!!! Me Too!!! Me Too!!!!

Well, that would mean every book got numbered twice.

[WeDealInLead]

hmmm, unbound signed signature sheets sitting around.... sounds interesting.... I'm guessing they haven't been trashed? what do you guys do with them?

We just keep them stored in a safe place because there's nothing really to be "done" with them, but I can't imagine throwing them out, either. It's quite the autograph collection!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

yeah... a special bound limited edition of 4? 5? of CD signatures from the past 20 years, of course.... keep me in mind for that one.

With optional Chadbourne drawings, of course.

Thanks, now I have spilled coffee on my white shirt.

Meaning.... excellent post sir!

PS I actually like Chadbourne's art but that post was too great to not be quoted

[thegreattim]

CD is now also selling some DT themed Alan M. Clark S/L prints. They are pretty nice looking! I picked up two myself...

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_alnart04

[oy-the-brave]

CD is now also selling some DT themed Alan M. Clark S/L prints. They are pretty nice looking! I picked up two myself...

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_alnart04

You can also purchase them and a ton of other prints in 2 sizes from Alan M Clark:

http://ifdpublishing.com/zencart/ind...dex&cPath=50_1



It is wierd to see CD selling prints of my OY trilogy commission.

[olverts]

Really nice prints
Just ordered the "Dark Tower " print

[thegreattim]

CD is now also selling some DT themed Alan M. Clark S/L prints. They are pretty nice looking! I picked up two myself...

http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/x_alnart04

You can also purchase them and a ton of other prints in 2 sizes from Alan M Clark:

http://ifdpublishing.com/zencart/ind...dex&cPath=50_1



It is wierd to see CD selling prints of my OY trilogy commission.

Awww, I wish I had known. I might have gone the direct route and picked up a remarque or two for a few dollars more.

[Jimimck]

I haven't finished reading part 7 yet (I know, I know)
And so was a little disheartened when I saw the title of one of the prints...

Fingers crossed it doesn't mean anything.

Don't feel the need to try and say either way, I'll stumble upon the truth sooner or later....

[LostAlivE]

Brian,
Wouldn't books sell better if they were numbered?
A couple of the books you have announced lately have print runs of 750. I know I would be more inclined to buy a signed and numbered book than one that isn't numbered.
To me all the books numbered from 1200 down would all be numbered.
I know it would mean a little more work but wouldn't it be worth it if you sold more books because they were numbered than not numbered?
How does everyone else feel about this?
Thank you,
Lost

[MLG]

Lost, I agree with you. I prefer numbered editions as well.

[Brian James Freeman]

Brian,
Wouldn't books sell better if they were numbered?
A couple of the books you have announced lately have print runs of 750. I know I would be more inclined to buy a signed and numbered book than one that isn't numbered.
To me all the books numbered from 1200 down would all be numbered.
I know it would mean a little more work but wouldn't it be worth it if you sold more books because they were numbered than not numbered?
How does everyone else feel about this?
Thank you,
Lost

Hi Lost!

We've really seen no noticeable difference in sales that we can trace back to whether the books are hand-numbered or not, but I do think it would be pretty cool to hand-number all of the books.

To do that, we'd have to raise the price of every book so we could hire another employee just to keep up with the numbering. We printed more than 30,000 copies of Limited Edition books last year and numbering all of them would take a substantial amount of time. It's not just the physical numbering that takes time, of course, but keeping track of the numbers (which numbers have been used, which customer gets which number, etc) and handling the requests for specific numbers (everyone wants #666!) already eats up a lot of the day for our warehouse manager for the books we do hand-number.

That said, if we heard from a lot of regular customers that they really wanted every book to be hand-numbered, we would look into it. I'm just not sure if we'd really want to raise the prices in the current economy, and we would have to do that to hire another staffer.

As it is, we're still charging around the same prices we did 15 years ago even though our costs have gone up dramatically in that time. We have an office and warehouse, three more full-time staffers, and the cost of paper alone for the books is easily three times higher than it was in the '90s. That means if we needed $3,000 worth of paper to print a book in 1996, it would now cost around $9,000 for the exact same amount of paper for that exact same book -- and that cost doesn't include the actual printing and binding and labor costs from the printer, all of which have also gone up.

We've tried to keep the prices down as much as we can because once you start raising the prices above a certain point, you see a drop off in sales from "regular" collectors, booksellers, and libraries. As a business, you try to find the middle ground of pricing and print runs. If you have to cut the print run too much, most projects become unfeasible from a business standpoint. That's part of the reason why so many new presses have come and gone in the last 10 years. It's very hard to make a 200 or 300 copy print run "work" as a business model.

So in the current economy, I think we'd need to hear from a lot of regular customers that this was a feature they really wanted and were willing to pay for so we could gauge whether raising prices was worth the lower sales that would occur due to people not wanting to (or being able to) pay the higher prices.

Thanks, as always, for the feedback. I will keep it in mind, and we're always glad to hear what collectors are thinking.

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
brianfreeman@cemeterydance.com
http://www.CemeteryDance.com

[jhanic]

Brian, I've been meaning to ask you--are those plastic pop-em bags you ship books in of archival quality? Can I store the books within them safely or should I remove the bags?

John