Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
I’m warning you. This is an article meant only for retailers and distributors and reviewers. So if you don’t want to see the nasty scrappy underbelly of this industry, then avert your eyes right now and go get a copy of fluff, like The Comics Journal. And it’s hacked together from various communications with other folks, so it’s a kind of daily-diary life-in-action piece:
You know I’m going to schill first (it’s how I get paid), so:
Bread and Swans -- The Desert Peach novel. Set to ship from Diamond and other distributors January, 2006. Available to retailers and distributors at www.booksurgedirect.com. Customers will be able to order it directly from www.booksurgedirect.com, through the regular comics channels, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and any book store that orders through Baker and Taylor. It will be available as an ebook as well.
Pithed -- Desert Peach #31. Full color. In process at www.lulu.com. Available by direct order, paperback and ebook, to customers only. Should be fully available by the end of October 2005. And as ebook.
Ringcat -- The long-promised novelette, originally prepared for Jambooks. Will be available as a 6 x 9 paperback by direct order, paperback and ebook, to customers only. Should be fully available by the end of October 2005. Also as ebook.
And now we slide into the subject of the article, even though it was originally available in the direct mass email:
“Retailers and Distributors: Lulu.com is working on making books available directly from individual publishers through their site. I will be keeping retailers and distributors informed as capability becomes available.
Reviewers: Print-on-demand is, at least for now, a comparatively expensive method. If you would like to review any of the books, please consider viewing them in a ebook or pdf form. Unless, of course, you just GOTTA have your own copy. :)”
And finally an email originally directed to the great guys at the Page 45 shop and review site – www.page45.com. We were talking about the Peach novel, available in POD:
“HUGE RETAILER QUESTION: What discount would make you guys (at Page 45) as retailers happy giddy? I could set it for your needs if distributors won’t order through www.booksurge.com (see what happens when you control the means of production?). And since this does NOT depend on shipping a bunch of books straight from a printer on deadline until such time as needed, I'm not time-whacked (is this a retailing term? Time-whacked?).”
That’s a question that I’m asking all retailers. So far it’s been 45%.
“Pithed is another thing entirely. Booksurge's color printing is prohibitively expensive. And while Lulu is working on... oh, lord the explanation is all about ISBN series and bulk printing and all the rest of that cross-eyedly-boring publisher babble... working on being completely compatible, and I COULD send it out through another method, for NOW -- in preparation for promised upgrades, and to keep the retail price down to what is reasonable in the POD world (and which will drop as they get more realistic and do more bulk) I'm basically, well, risking fewer orders for the rewards of the future.”
Does any of that make ANY sense? Probably not (rubbing eyes).”
So now we’ll attempt to make it understandable:
I’d love to have all my books available to customers, retailers and distributors, but the printing/publishing various worlds – while much closer together than they were when all we small publishers began sweat-nudging them (like so many Egyptian pyramid workers with a limestone block) toward each other – are still not quite in touch with one another. They’ve yet to make that final solid link.
Booksurge provides me with black-and-white access to Barnes and Noble, Baker and Taylor, Amazon, but upload of internals and cover is $50.00 apiece. Worth it for odd books that will only sell here and there? No. That’s what Lulu is for. Free upload, a copy to check and then send to the Library of Congress and push through the net and from a homesite.
I’d prefer to put a full-color book up at Booksurge, but the prices are ugly per book – and the upload costs double. I’ll have to do black-and-white versions of these books to put ‘em up at Booksurge.
Lulu – nice quality, easy upload and free – but distribution glitches. If you wish to distribute your books under your own series of ISBN numbers, you have no direct access to their much better bulk printing costs for Amazon and Ingrim. Ingrim sent me an email message that reflected their antique attitude toward printing and distribution – a publisher has to be able to offer them 10 active books, and other hoops for the arrogant. I sent them a polite message back that, when everybody ELSE could get our books, how would they explain not having them? Not being rude or anything – I can be dreadfully polite and business-like – but that limestone block needs to be noodged wherever necessary.
I should mention here that I’m in a better place re ISBN (International Serial Book Numbers) than most people. Every publisher has their own serial number start, and I have a BUNCH of them. Several years ago – before Bowker (www.bowker.com) knew what they had, I grabbed 200 ISBN numbers for $200.00 And have only used about 16 of them. So, to keep my books all together in Books In Print, I prefer to use one of my ISBN numbers.
Just picked up a SAN (Standard Address Number) too – the number that every publisher needs to use the worldwide electronic distribution tracking system. If you don’t have one, go get one from Bowker.
Okay. As I mentioned above, Lulu’s trying to make full distribution available to small publishers under each publisher’s own ISBN series. Until then, to go through Ingrim and that rickety 10-book gate, they have to offer books under the Lulu ISBN. This does NOT make them your publisher or provide you with an editor – unless you hire one with their services page – they just have to act as a publisher because of the numbers game.
So this is why my books are at Booksurge.com and Lulu.com and still in bulk-print copy at www.stinz.com
It’s better than it was… but we haven’t finished the King’s Tomb yet.
