I recently was told of a family society that invested thousands of dollars in publishing a book that is valuable to family members. Due to a shift in technology, however, the society may lose its "investment." I decided to share the story with others to hopefully prevent repetition by others.
Thousands of family genealogy books were published from the late 1800s through the 1900s. These books vary widely in quality, but many of them are exhaustive reference sources, containing information about thousands of individuals born with the same surname. The most common format is a book that contains information about all the known descendants of an original immigrant or some other individual. Some of these books contain hundreds, or even thousands, of pages of information.
For years, many family societies have been republishing these books and offering them for sale. All books published prior to 1929 are now considered to be public domain (reference: http://bit.ly/4aMuIED), and many books published after that date did not have the copyrights renewed. Republishing out-of-copyright books is legal, and it also provides a great service for extended family members who wish to get a quick start on researching their own family trees.
The recent story involves a particular family society that has been publishing books about their progenitors for more than fifty years. I don't want to embarrass anyone, so I am going to refer to this group as the "Smith Family Society." That isn't their real name. In fact, this story could apply to most any family society, so perhaps you will want to insert your own surname of interest in place of the word "Smith" throughout the rest of this story.
The original "Smith Family History" book was published in the early 1900s and sold well at the time. Starting in the 1970s, the Smith Family Society has been republishing the same book over and over, making it available to newer generations. I don't know how many copies have been sold over the years, but the number apparently is in the thousands of copies. In recent years, the Smith Family Society has been charging $79.95 for the thick book and has had many satisfied customers.
Indeed, republishing this old reference book has been a great service, and most of the people who purchased it have appreciated the republishing service. Of course, reprinting a book, even republishing an old book, is never cheap. The book in question is nearly 1,000 pages. In order to obtain a quantity discount, the Smith Family Society has always printed 1,000 copies at a time, placed the books in storage, and then sold them one-at-a-time. Once the inventory has been exhausted, the Smith Family Society has always ordered another 1,000 copies to be printed, and the cycle repeats itself. This method has worked well for years.
Of course, the printer expects to be paid when the books are printed, not when they are sold. Each time a new order has been sent to the printers, the Smith Family Society has always written a check for many thousands of dollars, then planned to regain that money from sales of the books over the following years. Throughout the 1900s and even the very first few years of the new century, that plan worked well. However, the same time-tested plan recently failed, and now the society may lose thousands of dollars as a result.
The reason for the failure is simple: both Google Books and Archives.org have now made digital copies of the same book available online, free of charge.
Anyone can download the free images of the book and store the digital version on their own hard drive. The free digital images are word-for-word the same as the printed copies that the society has been selling for $79.95. The online versions have the same text, the same table of contents, the same index, and even the same illustrations. Sales of the printed book have dropped dramatically and now are approaching zero copies sold per year.
Of course, some people will always prefer a printed book over a digital image. However, the price difference in this case is substantial: $79.95 versus zero. Many people who might wish for a printed copy will instead settle for a digital image, given the price difference.
Not everyone knows about the free image available online, but word has been "getting around." In fact, society officers are in a quandary, trying to decide if they should mention the availability of free digital versions of the book in the society's newsletter that is mailed to all society members. A simple mention of free books will probably kill almost all future book sales.
A number of "side issues" arise from this shift in technology. At last count, the Smith Family Association still has more than 500 copies of the book in storage. I don't know if the society is paying for that storage space or not. Hopefully, they have free storage and also, hopefully, the books are stored in a climate controlled storage facility.
Regardless of where the books are stored, there is always some risk. Paper and bindings will deteriorate over time, depending upon storage conditions. Rodent and insect damage can occur in some of the best storage facilities. A burst water pipe, a fire, a tornado, or a hurricane can also have disastrous consequences. The society is risking the money that is presently tied up in inventory. At the present rate of sales, that inventory may not be exhausted for another century!
If your society is planning to publish or republish materials, you might want to consider the financial implications. You will have "competitors!" Digital libraries are springing up everywhere, even digital genealogy libraries. BYU's Lee Library, FamilySearch, the Allen County Public Library, the Clayton Library in Houston, and many others are in the process of digitizing their collections and place them online. Even if your family's traditional reference book is not available online today, you need to realize that it probably will become available before long. Do you really want to spend thousands of dollars printing many copies of books in hopes that you can sell them and recover the costs in the future?
Others, including a dozen or more individuals, are selling CDs on eBay, are scanning books and making them available on CD-ROM disks at prices ranging from $5 to $25. To see some examples, go to http://www.ebay.com and search for: genealogy cd. I did that just now as I was preparing this article and I found hundreds of old genealogy books reprinted as PDF files on CD-ROM disks. To find “print on demand” books, go to http://www.ebay.com and search for: genealogy book. Again, hundreds of such books can be found and prices for printed books vary from $20 to $100 or more. I don't know how many of them were created using “print on demand” but I suspect a high percentage are created that way.
Can your society compete? I'd say "yes." The answers are simple: don't print a lot of books!
Perhaps your society should start selling printed books using “print on demand.” Don't print any books until someone orders one. Then have it printed at that time. Most publishers in the “print in demand” business will print the book within 24 hours or so and will even drop-ship it directly to the customer!
In fact, you might decide to not print any books at all and simply tell would-be purchasers to download their copies online. Another solution is offer the book on a (low cost) CD-ROM disk.
Perhaps a better solution is to only print a few copies at a time. In fact, "print on demand" is very popular and cost-effective today. You might print only one copy at a time and then only after receiving an order. Others may find it more cost-effective to wait for an order but then to respond by printing five or perhaps ten copies. One copy gets sent to the purchaser while the other four copies (or nine copies) are placed in inventory, awaiting future sales. The financial risk of printing only a few books at a time is obviously much less than publishing a thousand copies all at one time.
To be sure, printing small quantities of books is more expensive per book than making a big purchase. However, your society is already competing against the best possible price: free. You might as well increase the selling price of your books in order to cover the increased printing costs. After all, you are now offering the "premium version." You might as well charge a premium price, say $25?
By cooperating with the digital libraries and even promoting digital publishing, you can provide a real service to your society's members. After all, isn't that the primary purpose of the society? To serve its members in the best manner possible?
In all cases, the driving question is, "What happens if we get stuck with all these books?"
Dozens of companies can publish books as “print on demand” volumes. One well-known genealogy publisher, Genealogical Publishing Company, may be found at http://www.genealogical.com.
Genealogical Publishing Company has been publishing print on demand books for several years, along with traditional printed volumes in larger quantities. If you want a true do-it-yourself effort, you can also investigate:
LuLu at http://www.lulu.com
CreateSpace at https://www.createspace.com/ for print distribution to Amazon, including publishing in Kindle format, with no upfront cost
IngramSpark at http://www.ingramspark.com/ for print distribution to non-Amazon universe
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing at https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHKDSCW2KQ3K4UU4 for ebook distribution (zero upfront cost)
The above list shows some of the more popular print-on-demand publishers but you can also find many more with a quick Google search. Search for: “print on demand”.
The next time you or your publisher think about republishing an out-of-copyright book, you probably will want to consider print on demand publishing.