The BronyCon Bookstore: Let's Get a Headcount, Y'all · 3:19am Dec 29th, 2018
And we're back!
First of all, thanks so, so, so^(n+1) much to everyone who read, shared, and commented on the blog post I made a few months ago pitching the concept of the BronyCon Bookstore. You all have now enabled me beyond my expectations, and everything that happens from here on out is entirely your fault. Enjoy that. (Seriously, though, you guys are awesome and I'm still incredibly stoked for this thing.)
However, as of last week-ish, we've now reached an important milestone in the pre-Bookstore-actually-existing-in-meatspace timeline. Namely, BronyCon merch hall applications are now officially open, which means I'm currently putting together my formal proposal to (hopefully) get us our own non-Artist-Alley booth at the Final Great Horsefandom Hullabaloo.
Prior to this last week or so, I also got a chance to discuss the idea with a couple members of the con staff, who were very supportive and thought it was a really neat pitch. However, one of the suggestions they made--and which I agree with--is that the pitch would be strengthened considerably by a notated list of the writers who are meaningfully interested in participating in this thing, as well as of the books those writers would like to write/edit, get printed, and sell.
To that end, I've created the survey linked after the line break below to gauge how many people I can expect to be interested enough in this project to produce print runs and help stock the Bookstore. If you are one of those interested people, please click the link below and answer a few questions before January 10th, 2019 so I can get some names and likely products to run by the BronyCon staff. Also, if you don't plan to get any books printed but are still interested in helping staff the Bookstore, you should also fill out this survey, because there's one question that touches on that. You even only have to fill out one page instead of two, ya lucky ducks.
HERE IS THE SURVEY PLEASE GO DO IT
Also, while you're here, I've got a few additional updates regarding general Bookstore-related things. First, GaPJaxie constructed an absolutely terrific guide to editing for and printing self-published books that anyone who's planning to contribute to the Bookstore should go check out, and which I definitely didn't tell him I would plug like a month and a half ago instead of right now. If I had done the latter thing, I would definitely say, "My bad" to him, but in my defense there really wasn't much to say on the Bookstore front until merch hall applications opened and I like to keep things collated together.
But yeah, seriously, my bad.
Second, I've been spitballing pricing strategies for volumes to be stocked in the Bookstore and have settled on one that I think will work well, but I'd also of course like to run it by you guys as well. My idea is a $35/$45/$55 model: the first price for softcover books under 60,000 words, the second price for hardcovers under 60,000 words or softcovers over 60,000 words, and the third price for hardcovers over 60,000 words. This is by no means final, so I'd certainly like to hear input on this from the people who would be presumably printing and selling books at these prices.
Third and lastly for this blog post, I'm thinking I'd like to lower the word count minimum for volumes to be stocked in the Bookstore from 40,000 words to 25,000-30,000 words, in no small part because I'd like to explore whether having a dedicated section for kid-friendly books would be feasible. This would naturally be dependent on what stories are printed and available for sale come convention time, but since I imagine a lot of congoers might bring (or be) children as they have in years past, being able to point to a series of short stories or novellas that are fully written in the show's style and accessible to little guys and gals would be a great idea if it's reasonably possible.
That's all for now, folks. Thanks again for all the support, and I linked the survey again below just so you don't have to scroll up as far from the comments. You know your boy's got you over here.
You can count on 20 copies oy Under A Luminous Sky and ten copies of Ponyville Bachelor Auction from me!
Oh goodness, I'm going to need to compile my stuff and figure out how many pages and words I'm looking at and...
Well, it's a good thing I still have a long weekend ahead of me.
I am super pumped for this.
What exactly would helping staff the bookstore entail?
The proposed price points are a surprise; I'm coming at it from the perspective of "As affordable as possible" and "Lulu prints books cheaply" -- I have a few in the works that would be $20 (dust-jacketed hardback) and one that might only be $5 (small paperback).
I should clarify what I answered in the survey, because it's not as cut and dried as that.
I am not interested in publishing a book of my own works. If there are others looking to make a compilation of shorter works by multiple authors, then I'd potentially want in on that.
On the staffing side, you'd previously mentioned different ways of people participating. I'm not interested in being sales staff or helping people find stories that might suit their tastes. I am interested in helping people with their own writing, if that's still a function you want this booth to serve.
4987528
Basically the same thing as staffing any con booth: manning the space, greeting customers, keeping track of transactions, etc. Since I’ll be splitting proceeds by author, the money management aspect will be a bit more complicated than it would for most booths, but I’m operating under the assumption that I’ll be present for most if not all of the time the booth would be open as oversight, if nothing else.
4987530
That pricing’s based on what I saw the FO:E fic I mentioned in the previous post go for at previous cons, as well as a general markup for fic authors based on what I’ve seen and heard from other merch Hall people I’ve talked to. It’s definitely upcharging based on pure printing costs, but I think the value of the writing itself is where more discussion could be warranted.
4987531
That’s fine for now. The prospect of adding additional writing-related services is something I want to keep in mind for now but not firm up in any detail until I know for sure whether we have a booth space and what size that booth space is.
4987532
Ah, thanks for the information.
4987535
The authors I've spoken with aren't interested in trying to make a profit, so the tentative plan was simply to round Lulu's print cost up to a nice round number.
4987538
If that’s the consensus, then I’m definitely not attached to those figures. Like I’ve said before, I’m fully expecting to lose money on this personally, so if selling at cost works for everyone, I’d be down for it.
4987542
💸
4987530
How's the actual paper/binding quality on Lulu? I would tots put my stuff up for On Demand if I was at all certain of the end product. Last time I used lulu, I was still in college and unimpressed with what I received. Not that it was trying to be a book.
I still have like 10 copies of List left. If I can't get time to hit the con, I can mail/send them someone. You can use them to help defray cost of booth or as prizes or whatever. I already paid for that run and these are just bonuses collecting dust.
WHELP.
Since this is a thing, I maaaay get around to making a dozen or so copies of a "Flash Sentry Papers" anthology.
4987546
I've done a few test runs on Lulu and have been pleased with the quality; actually have a new one being delivered tomorrow.
I'd be happy to take your List copies up with me if needs be.
I'm not planning to sell anything, but if you need help running the booth let me know. I could cover it while someone goes to a panel or something.
...I shall have to think on this. A lot.
4987538
Keep in mind that the cost of printing the books themselves is not the only cost incurred by this venture. The booth itself will cost a few hundred dollars and aquiring and shipping the books and any display and presentation materials for the booth will also likely not be free. I’m not sure exactly how much aqua and company are planning to lay out themselves to make this happen, but these things should be considered when deciding on pricing and the terms agreed on by participating authors.
Edit: I re-read the initial bookstore post and noted that Aqua did actually say he would cover the booth itself and not take any portion of the book sales. This is awfully cool of him. However, I still think it might be reasonable to set an even pricing scheme across books in the store to avoid price unduly affecting purchasing decisions, and such a model should account for the possibility of authors who would like to make something off this.
Well, here's hoping I have Desert Spice completed before then. Otherwise I'll only have half of what I promised.
4987584
In my "Lulu production cost rounded up to a clean number" price, the "rounded-up" portion would go to overhead expenses like contributing to the booth cost. (I'll be covering transportation/shipping myself, for the stock I'm responsible for.)
I don't know that I can agree with artificially inflating prices against participating authors' wills, especially those who actively don't want to make a profit and instead offer their books as cheaply as possible to their fans.
4987596
"Against their will" seems like a dramatic way of putting it. I wouldn't suggest refusing to price books as requested by the author. They'd be more like guidelines, I guess.
I suppose whether this is a bridge that even needs to be crossed depends on the desires of the authors who end up signing on. Art vendors at cons tend to want the proceeds to at least cover the cost of the trip, or they likely wouldn't find themselves doing it more than once. This, being a one-off, is a bit different in concept, so I might be coming at it from a different perspective than any actual participants.
I will kick your lazy pony butt.
I already have hardback versions available, but made a "special BronyCon edition" paperback to keep the cost down. I was thinking more like $10 for 70k words. (The Celestia Code)
Are we still limited to 3 books total?
4987546
I've done professional manuals and classic fiction books on Lulu as well as my own fanfics, and I think the quality is excellent. Both PP and Chris have copies, so you can check with them to get second opinions.
I'm still willing to offer a nice set of bookshelves for the booth. It's the same set my dad uses for his convention bookstore that I've helped with, and every single con we've done has gotten compliments on how nice the booth looks. All setup and everything it looks like a slice of a bookstore. Not sure if I'd be willing to do time at the booth itself during the convention though.
As for prices, I think trying to stick to a static set of prices across all stories is a mistake. People at a con are there to splurge and will pay a bit more for something they really like. Just doing price per book set by the author strikes me as the best way to handle it rather than across the board pricing.
I don't even know if I'm going to go to the con
4987531
I'm also interested in contributing to a Short story anthology. One of the stories I would like to submit is 5k.
Hey Jake. Did you workout today?
4987535
Yeah I’d definitely lean more towards making things available as cheaply as possible if I was going to try to sell there. Which I’m debating... but part of the question is trying to figure out how sure I can be about being able to attend.
I dunno. The way I see it, I’m not a “name” that could command whatever price point. I’d consider myself lucky to participate at all, and my only real financial motivation would be to try to recoup the production costs of doing so. I guess a bit of a markup would help make that more likely, assuming I’d sell a couple books but not all of them; but I wouldn’t want to scare away people who are curious.
And thinking along those lines, I think lower prices would probably help make sure more people’s stuff gets purchased. I mean, all things being equal, I’d probably rather take a chance on several $10-$15 books that sound interesting than confine myself to one or two $50 books that I already know.
I will buy all of them.
4987658
That’d be awesome if you could help out with shelving! That was another thing that was on my mind for later but I haven’t made specific moves towards yet, so if that’s feasible on your end that’d be a great way to get that sorted early.
And yeah, I sympathize with that perspective re: pricing, but my concern is that if prices aren’t standard across the board, people will buy whatever’s cheapest rather than what they might like more on the surface. Definitely another good reason to open the floor up publicly on that specifically later, though.
I did the survey before I caught the word cutoff, so ignore my second request, but its great youre doing this. I'd pay to get 10 copies of Range made if I could get one.
My current thought is Celestia Sleeps In, a collection of SoL works, and something else. No idea just yet what that something else might be; I could do The Haunting, or all the Sam and Rose stories in one book, or a collection of crackfics . . . jury’s out on that one.
At least I’ve got a fair number of works to draw from.
4987530 4987755 4987658
Maybe? I don't see that as a big problem--
I'd be more comfortable with a uniform pricing scheme if the pricing were lower. Cost plus 20%, perhaps, but not cost + 50%. I plan to lose money, not make money, on this. Not for ideological reasons; I'm just an attention whorse. And I don't want to ask people more for my book than I'd pay for it myself.
Limiting each author to some smallish number of copies should prevent anypony from selling too many. It would also prevent anyone from getting financially wiped out by printing 50 copies and not selling any of them. (Altho as a fan of the free market, I'm supposed to be opposed to protecting people from their own mistakes.)
4987631
I've seen you, and I've seen Aquaman. I think you need a different plan.
On the survey, does "how many volumes" mean "how many different books" or "how many copies total of all your books"?
(Also, it says "BronyCon Bookstore 2k18" instead of 2k19.)
4990885
“How many different books.” Sorry about that being unclear—admittedly I wasn’t sure I’d phrased that well anyway.
And... shit. I guess you’ve got a point. Let’s say it was conceived in 2018 and call it a draw.
I have every intention of joining this. I'd even be willing to staff for a shift.
One of the ideas being tossed around is anthologies. Not just single-author anthologies of smaller stories, but also Shared Universe anthologies from one and/or multiple authors. What is the opinion on that?
4992962
Filling out the survey now! Ooh, I'm so excited for this!
Guess I'll sign up for this too. Though I feel weird about making any money off of it, since I'm already offering the book at cost through Lulu.
I'm definitely interested. Just filled out the survey!
I can't believe I almost forgot about this! Survey complete!
Where would stories like "Keepers of DIscord," "Insomnia," and "Sunny Skies All Day Long" fit in given that, although they are all absolutely incredible fics, each falls short of the minimum word count?
4994456
Perhaps you can combine two of the stories into one combined book, or even all three?
On another note, would there be anyway for people not coming to BronyCon to order books? I remember some talk of an eshop, and I'd be totally be willing to pay any expenses of shipping that the authors would have to do in order to get my hands on some books since it is very unlikely for me to be able to attend the con directly.
Definitely interested in this, as I have a set of short stories meant to be read all together (ie as a storybook) that I've been working on for a while! I am also available to do cover art for anyone who needs it for free/little charge, just let me know!
Realized I never commented on this, but re:
I would definitely support lowering it, to offer some shorter/more kid-friendly choices!
4994991 I plan on having The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale there, which is going to be about as kid friendly as they get. Particularly since it will be a 'draw your own dragon on the inside' book with encouragement for budding young artists to do terrible things with it that they would never be able to do with library books.
(We just won't tell Twilight)
5037616
That sounds awesome!
When I made that comment about kid-friendly choices, I knew Chris's Purloined Pony would be available -- I think it'd be perfect for any kids at the con.