How did your book sell (if it was published)?

[Gunner Bailey]

On 20/08/2019 at 10:35, Gibbo said:

 

The publisher is supposed to send the British Library a copy. Given the timing of the  printing of your 3rd volume and the closure of your publisher, perhaps the person responsible had been made redundant before this was done?

 

The other copyright libraries are entitled to request a copy but it's up to them to do so. Some publishers send them one without waiting to be asked but they aren't obliged to do so.

 

I got a request from the British Library which I sent off then a few weeks later got a similar request from the 'Legal Deposit Libraries' asking for copies to go to the Scottish, Welsh and RoI Libraries plus the Bodlian and Cambridge equivalent. These people are seemingly ignorant that self publishers actually pay for these copies to be printed. 

[Moonraker]

34 minutes ago, Gunner Bailey said:

 

I got a request from the British Library which I sent off then a few weeks later got a similar request from the 'Legal Deposit Libraries' asking for copies to go to the Scottish, Welsh and RoI Libraries plus the Bodlian and Cambridge equivalent. These people are seemingly ignorant that self publishers actually pay for these copies to be printed. 

But it makes it more likely that someone wanting to consult your book in, say, thirty years time, will be able to find out where copies of it are, especially with purchased copies  having been given to charity shops or thrown away. In the late 1990s I spent many days at the Bodleian and other Oxford University libraries consulting books not available elsewhere, even in specialist military libraries. (Conversely, some of the latter had material not held by Oxford.)

 

Moonraker

[Gunner Bailey]

I suppose the compensation is that you have a book in the Bodlian

 

A friend is working on what will be a definitive and huge grenade book with a published price of £500 a copy (huge book - small print run). It would be rather tough on him to have to send 6 copies off to libraries free of charge

 

John

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Gunner Bailey said:

 

I got a request from the British Library which I sent off then a few weeks later got a similar request from the 'Legal Deposit Libraries' asking for copies to go to the Scottish, Welsh and RoI Libraries plus the Bodlian and Cambridge equivalent. These people are seemingly ignorant that self publishers actually pay for these copies to be printed. 

 

     Copyright deposit is a legal requirement, dating back to the days of Queen Eilzabeth and the arrangements made by Sir Thomas Bodley to acquire copies of all books published in London (at least) with the Stationers' Company.

 

      Copyright Deposit is governed currently by the Deposit Libraries Act of 2003.  It means you have to deposit with the 5 UK copyright libraries, plus a separate arrangement with the Republic of Ireland to continue the pre-1922 arrangement that make Trinity College Dublin a deposit library. It is administered through the British Library-If it claims a copy, then the other deposit libraries usually follow suit-though they can forego the delights of your book if they wish. Obviously, you are popular,

 

     There is not really much point in complaining about it-it's the law.

 

By the way, for a self-publisher it is not only useful but vital:

1) Deposit gives copyright protection in law.

 

2) Deposit also gives reference to you book in the British National Bibliography, which is used by many,many libraries to see what is out there to purchase.

 

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Gunner Bailey said:

I suppose the compensation is that you have a book in the Bodlian

 

A friend is working on what will be a definitive and huge grenade book with a published price of £500 a copy (huge book - small print run). It would be rather tough on him to have to send 6 copies off to libraries free of charge

 

John

 

    A frequent complaint for those made to deposit copies is that they "value" the book at it's retail price. It is not correct. It is better to factor in the 6 deposit copies in your price assumptions when costing a print-run-and it's the run-on cost for the copies, not the retail price which counts. In effect, to budget for the deposit copies means that each paying customer is chipping in a little bit of the cost of the deposit copies.

[Gunner Bailey]

Thanks for the clarification especially on point 2).

 

I explained point 1) to a friend who last year published a niche book on English Churches without an ISBN. His book content is linked to his website which is regularly visited by architectural students. I offered to publish his 2nd Edition for him.

 A frequent complaint for those made to deposit copies is that they "value" the book at it's retail price. It is not correct. It is better to factor in the 6 deposit copies in your price assumptions when costing a print-run-and it's the run-on cost for the copies, not the retail price which counts. In effect, to budget for the deposit copies means that each paying customer is chipping in a little bit of the cost of the deposit copies.

 

Good advice. In my case it just moves the break even point along a little way.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Gunner Bailey said:

Thanks for the clarification especially on point 2).

 

I explained point 1) to a friend who last year published a niche book on English Churches without an ISBN. His book content is linked to his website which is regularly visited by architectural students. I offered to publish his 2nd Edition for him.

 

Good advice. In my case it just moves the break even point along a little way.

 

    But look on the bright side-  Yes, cost is a factor but very few of us here on GWF would really expect to come out financially ahead  from publishing a book. If we did expect to do that, we would be writing junk fiction rather than books on the history of hand grenades....although the way the country is going....Say no more!!

[Moonraker]

30 minutes ago, Gunner Bailey said:

I explained point 1) to a friend who last year published a niche book on English Churches without an ISBN. His book content is linked to his website which is regularly visited by architectural students. I offered to publish his 2nd Edition for him.

For how long will your friend and his website continue?

 

I suspect that the libraries do not pursue authors and publishers who do not wish to provide copies. Occasionally in my 1990s researches I was a little disappointed when a title was not available at the Oxford University libraries - and also not in military libraries. Usually such books had been produced by very small publishers.

 

It  was also sad that the result of an author's hard work, and something that (s)he had taken pleasure and satisfaction in, seemed to have evaporated.

 

The results of research should not be ephemeral, but rather for posterity.

 

Moonraker

[Bernard_Lewis]

I was happy to send off the six deposit copies of my one self-published work (on Neath RFC). I also gave a single copy to both my local Archive office and reference library. 

 

I am now immortal *official* (or at least my name is 😂😂)

 

Bernard

[Felix C]

I presume libraries prefer hardcover books for their holdings? 

Edited 31 August , 2019 by Felix C

[Gunner Bailey]

16 hours ago, Moonraker said:

For how long will your friend and his website continue?

 

I suspect that the libraries do not pursue authors and publishers who do not wish to provide copies. Occasionally in my 1990s researches I was a little disappointed when a title was not available at the Oxford University libraries - and also not in military libraries. Usually such books had been produced by very small publishers.

 

 

Moonraker

 

1. That's one of my friend's concerns. He gets worldwide hits on his website but asked "who will pay for it and maintain the data after he dies?"

 

He did say there is a campaigner who wants a national archive of websites.

 

2. I think they do.

[MaureenE]

23 minutes ago, Gunner Bailey said:

 

1. That's one of my friend's concerns. He gets worldwide hits on his website but asked "who will pay for it and maintain the data after he dies?"

 

If I wanted the data on a website I had created to continue to be accessible to people I would use the Internet Archive (Archive.org) Way Back Machine . The entire website can be archived by the owner initiating this (if large), or if smaller, individual pages can be archived by anyone . See

https://archive.org/web/web.php#forum

 

and  https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/categories/360000553851-The-Wayback-Machine

 

However, when archived the Search facility does not work, so the website needs to be structured so that you can go from one part of the website to another by means of clicking on links for various categories, or if there is data, being able to browse the databases.

 

I am only familiar with this as a user, but I find it very useful. I write for a Wiki, and links frequently "die", but very often I can find archived links so the information is not lost. In fact,  at the time I originally add a link, I will try and save it in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, (for a possible future need) although some links are structured so this is not possible.

 

Cheers

Maureen

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Felix C said:

I presume libraries prefer hardcover books for their holdings? 

 

No-  the requirement is for the work as published. If  a work is published simultaneously in hardback and paperback, then the deposit libraries prefer and would claim the hardback- usually, they will not claim the paperback as well as, in copyright terms, it is not subject to deposit if the textblock is the same- it is merely a variant of  the hardback with text unaffected. A problem comes with books that come out in revised editions- there has usually to be some significant difference between editions. Thus, say,with law texts- BL and Co tend to have a first edition but can be very slow, if claiming at all, on subsequent editions.  But  doing editions in hardback and paperback, and running to revised editions is not that likely for most of us here on GWF.

    The disappearance of websites is a major problem. I am now glad that I took the trouble to copy data, esp. pics. on Tinternet of local casualties when I started as  quite a lot has now disappeared-  Lives of the First World War and many of the smaller sites that fed into show what perils there are in confusing the ubiquity of  Tinternet with a presumption as to permanence.

   I try to look on the bright side- as a bookseller of sorts,then,of course, I prefer physical volumes. But a lot of stuff gets overlooked because  it was irregularly published or printed, not deposited  and one can spend a lot of time chasing down copies of books  that turn up-in the end-in one library only-and that usually because of some casual acquisition, usually  gifted.

   It is a worry in the centennial years and beyond about just how much stuff is going to be lost- Websites,of course, a  particular problem. But the decline of IWM- or,at least, it's growing hostility and indifference to the printed word means that I suspect strongly that it's collecting  in the centennial years has,at best,been patchy.  Using COPAC, I am often surprised that the London Library- a private subscription library- is often the only location for small books printed in the last 20 years -this must lead to concerns about  what has been produced in recent years and  where the hell it can be found.

    I was disappointed that for the centennial years, there was never any sort of online bibliography of what stuff is out there- sometimes wondered whether GWF could run one as an adjunct- by army,division, regiment,battalion,etc. Nothing worse than trying to write up something or someone and to find out late on,despite diligent thumping of bibliographical sources, that there is a first-hand account of what I want buried away in a small, obscurely printed book that is not represented in the deposit libraries.

[Gunner Bailey]

4 hours ago, Maureene said:

If I wanted the data on a website I had created to continue to be accessible to people I would use the Internet Archive (Archive.org) Way Back Machine . The entire website can be archived by the owner initiating this (if large), or if smaller, individual pages can be archived by anyone . See

https://archive.org/web/web.php#forum

 

and  https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/categories/360000553851-The-Wayback-Machine

 

However, when archived the Search facility does not work, so the website needs to be structured so that you can go from one part of the website to another by means of clicking on links for various categories, or if there is data, being able to browse the databases.

 

I am only familiar with this as a user, but I find it very useful. I write for a Wiki, and links frequently "die", but very often I can find archived links so the information is not lost. In fact,  at the time I originally add a link, I will try and save it in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, (for a possible future need) although some links are structured so this is not possible.

 

Cheers

Maureen

 

Thanks very much Maureen. That's really useful. I'll pass the information on.

 

John

[Phil Wood]

On 31/08/2019 at 13:00, Maureene said:

If I wanted the data on a website I had created to continue to be accessible to people I would use the Internet Archive (Archive.org) Way Back Machine . The entire website can be archived by the owner initiating this (if large), or if smaller, individual pages can be archived by anyone . See

https://archive.org/web/web.php#forum

 

and  https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/categories/360000553851-The-Wayback-Machine

 

However, when archived the Search facility does not work, so the website needs to be structured so that you can go from one part of the website to another by means of clicking on links for various categories, or if there is data, being able to browse the databases.

 

I am only familiar with this as a user, but I find it very useful. I write for a Wiki, and links frequently "die", but very often I can find archived links so the information is not lost. In fact,  at the time I originally add a link, I will try and save it in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, (for a possible future need) although some links are structured so this is not possible.

 

Cheers

Maureen

 

I have published a lot of information on my website regarding the casualties named on my local memorial - a subject that I intend to cover in less detail in a book. I recently found it had been archived by the British Library - but can only be viewed on their premises. On querying this I was informed that they would like to make it more available, for which purpose I need to complete a licensing agreement. I really must get round to it!

 

Publication on the internet has the huge advantage that modifications can be made at any point - I know that the day the book comes out something will crop up that will make me want to change it.

 

One problem with the idea that publishing a book makes the information immortal is the one I face - I have too much information to fit into a book that can be sold at a sane price. So much may not be immortalised. To mitigate this I intend to collate all information and get it bound in one or more volumes to be deposited in the local record office and, probably the local library. I am even contemplating a bookbinding course!

[MaureenE]

7 hours ago, Phil Wood said:

 

One problem with the idea that publishing a book makes the information immortal is the one I face - I have too much information to fit into a book that can be sold at a sane price. So much may not be immortalised. To mitigate this I intend to collate all information and get it bound in one or more volumes to be deposited in the local record office and, probably the local library. I am even contemplating a bookbinding course!

 

Another option with Archive.org, if the ultimate aim is to preserve the data, and not make a profit from a book, is to upload to the Internet Archive (Archive.org) as a book.

See my previous post "Upload your transcriptions to Archive.org (Internet Archive)"

 

The current advantage of uploading as a book to the Internet Archive, as compared with an archived website in the Wayback Machine, is that if you do an internet search, say Google, the Internet Archive books are searched, whereas for the Wayback machine you need to know either the previous URL, or Search the Wayback machine on the Internet Archive site.

 

Regarding the website archived by the British Library, check out that the whole website has been archived, not just the Main page. I belong to a Society whose website is archived by the British Library. When I looked at the BL archived site (and this was some years ago) I thought it was almost useless, as it appeared to be just the Main page -  most of the website was not accessible in the BL archived form.

 

Cheers

Maureen