Country Blues > Discographies
Blues Discography 1943-1970
Bunker Hill:
--- Quote from: uncle bud on October 01, 2006, 03:31:00 PM ---I still don't really understand the pricing though. Sure academic presses charge quite a bit for their books (although this isn't an academic press). But I think once you go over $75 your client base becomes almost exclusively libraries. What are the costs here that make it so high? Printing is certainly expensive, but there are lots of 640 page paperbacks out there for a lot less than 91 bucks - and this is on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, which seems unusual. There is no doubt an unimaginable amount of labour that goes into a book like this, for which those involved deserve high praise, but there is labour in any large detailed book. And I think charging $16 for shipping and an extra $4 for credit card processing is really pushing it. If you're in business, that's the cost of doing business.
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From looking at the sample pages on the website, the rather weird size I think is due to having got two pages of the earlier format onto one of the new with the use of two columns a page, thereby achieving a single volume. Blues discographical books have a very finite/specialised market of usually about 750-1000, and then only after several years on sale. It's a fact the previous edition took around 2-3 years to sell 500 of each volume. Neither got near selling 750 except the overprinted Vol.1 which was dramatically reduced and folk purchased copies to replace their well-thumbed and falling apart ones. In the case of B&GR4 I was reliably informed that it took OUP 6-7 years to sell its initial 1000 print run. Ho, hum.
Bunker Hill:
--- Quote from: uncle bud on October 02, 2006, 08:40:20 AM ---I wonder when such projects will go to electronic format, either on CD-ROM or web-based, which frankly makes more sense these days, allows for corrections and updates etc. And is obviously becoming more standard for libraries and what not.
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Couldn't agree more. The excuse used to be to that it would be too easy to "pirate" the work. However, some years back somebody in Japan actually OCR scanned the entire two volumes of the post war discography (1600 pages) and had for themselves an "electronic" copy and all the related advantages of such. So that blows the argument that books are "pirate proof" out of the water. :)
uncle bud:
Yes, I can see why fear of pirating might make some hesitate, but libraries certainly aren't into that, collectors and blues scholars would presumably want authentic copies with access to updates, corrections etc, and any piracy I suspect would be a fringe thing. As you say, this is a specialists' publication, and specialists would I suspect take the legit road most of the time. One doesn't even need to use the example of OCRing. You could photocopy the thing for cheap (and have it bound even) if you were set on stealing. I don't think their market would be inclined to such things though, and would recognize the need to pay for the work so the work continues. In fact, with registration keys now activated through websites and what not, it's probably easier for most non-techy people to copy a book than software.
dj:
It's hard to see the value of pirating a book that's expected to sell 200 copies a year at most.
I'd love to have Blues & Gospel Records on CD with a simple set of database tools, to be able to do things like search to see who was recording in a given city on a given date. On the other hand, I love to have a physical book. I'm sure most Weenies will agree with me that there's nothing better than sitting on the back porch on a summer afternoon with a cold beer a pre-war blues discography. :D
Richard:
S-J it's only money and you can't take it with you, even a pair of (hated) name trainers are at leats ?50 here now (so my kids tell me!) so, go live dangerously!
A real book, dj you have it.. after 20 mins I hate reading things on computer that last more than a page !
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