and some late-breaking happy news...

[lagilman]

late orders came in for BURNING BRIDGES and they upped the initial run.

*is pleased*


(and I just realized that may have been written in publisherese. Everyone grok?)

Comments

[rhonawestbrook.livejournal.com]

Thats awesome!

Hey...are you going to DragonCon this year?

[strigine.livejournal.com]

Sweeeeet!

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

I grok. Is goooood!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

And yes, I understood that.

[logrusboy.livejournal.com]

Everyone grok?

Sure. You're more marketable than your publisher thought and thusly your agent should, in the future, ask for larger advances.

That about cover it? :)

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Very cool.

[deire.livejournal.com]

Yay! Oui, je comprends bien.

[music-lover3.livejournal.com]

everyone's saying congrats, i take it that's a good thing?? i would say congrats too, but i don't really know what that means. explain, please???

[lagilman]

How far back in the process do you want me to explain?

Basically, print orders are set by

1. the publisher creating solicitation flats (the covers you see on books, only printed with the sales info on the back) and taking them to the people who place orders for bookstores. They pitch a month or a season at a time, which can mean many dozen of books at once, in a short period of time.
2. the buyer places an order.
3. the publisher places a print run order (how many books they will actualy print) based on actual orders plus a certain small percentage for the warehouse.

(In other words, no, the print run is not pulled out of thin air by the publisher)

Sometimes, however, the buyer may see the catlogue without a sales rep there, or there may decide at a later date to change their order, and the estimate changes.

When it changes down, that's bad. When it changes up, that's yay.

Why? Other than the fact that more demand is GOOD, a larger print run also lowers to production costs, which means the books have a better chance of earning out their advance (which may need to be another entry, if required).

Of course, I'm still waiting to find out if they were buying to the net, in which case it's a modified yay, or if they were buying above the net, in which case it's an unqualified YAY!

[lagilman]

no DragonCon, but it looks like I will be at ComicCon after all....

[lagilman]

heh. More like, "the buyers bought into the belief held by my publisher that I will sell well."

[logrusboy.livejournal.com]

Close enough (for my purposes). Congrats! :)

[music-lover3.livejournal.com]

thanks for explaining this, but if you don't mind, could you explain this a little bit more? it's all kind of interesting, but i don't really understand this bit.(and double congrats by the way!!!)

*a larger print run also lowers to production costs, which means the books have a better chance of earning out their advance (which may need to be another entry, if required)*

[lagilman]

Okay, befire I start any kind of publishing 102 course, have you taken/can you fake your way through publishing 101? (i.e. the process of getting a book publihed, advances and royalties, the role of the publisher vs the role of the bookstore?) Because without that info, explaining production costs is kind of like putting candles in an empty cake pan...

[music-lover3.livejournal.com]

cool analogy there. i could probably fake my way through it, but just in case i have a brain fart and suddenly don't understand publishing 102, is there a handy dandy website you could point me to?? :)