I have completed work on my book. 108 original tunes with chords. It's available from my website: www.davyrogers.com.
Would anyone like to receive a free reviewers copy and write a reveiw?
It will cost you (10 numbers min), and you'll need to tell them that the book is more than just sheet music, but it's worth it. Your publication gets listed, and other benefits.
If you use a self-publishing service like lulu or createspace, the ISBN is part of the package. A friend of mine self-published her most recent novel through one of these services after four novels with a traditional publisher, and she's pretty happy with the outcome. I believe she went through createspace, but I couldn't swear to it - in any case, there are a number of options, so you'd want to do your own research.
Just remember that, when pricing the book, you need to make a profit even at a discounted price to booksellers etc.
The book trade pricing works by having a retail price, which is discounted (35-40% is common) to the trade. This is not like the normal retailing method of having a trade price which is marked up by the retailer.
All of that is more or less baked into the terms at a site like lulu or createspace. I don't see the point in trying to reinvent this particular wheel. This part of the business is all simple math, the stuff that computers do really well. This means it's a commodity good, and that means you can expect competition to set prices reasonably well.
It looks to me like you get pretty close to the same deal on both sites. For lulu, an 8.5X11 black and white book of 150 pages at a royalty of $5 gets a retail price of $24.00, while at createspace, the same size and page count priced at $24.00 gets a final royalty of $5.40. That's pretty close.
It seems to me the mechanical problems of creating the book are more or less solved - you can buy an ISBN, contact a manufacturer, arrange for storage of the finished product, arrange for distributiong and shipping and so forth, but I think you'll find that these guys make money by having thought of all of that for you.
The down side is that they're using on-demand printing, which is pretty good, but not quite as nice as a traditionally produced book. However, unless you want thousands of copies of this book in your garage for years to come, that's really going to be the most attractive option.
So producing and distributing the books is not so much a problem these days. The hard part is figuring out how you get people to buy the book. Traditionally, you'd make good recordings of the tunes and include a CD with the book. These days, you might do better to set up a YouTube channel and make good video clips available that way. This would probably save you a lot of money, all told, and the video channel would advertise the book, assuming the clips looked and sounded reasonably professional.
It's not like me to complain, but........
.......the title is an oxymoron.
"Tunes in the Irish Traditional Style by........" would be correct.
YOU can't write a traditional anything, because it takes generations for it to be accepted as traditional.
Not to say your tunes aren't good, and would go down well at a session, but that's a different matter.
"All of that is more or less baked into the terms at a site like lulu or createspace. I don't see the point in trying to reinvent this particular wheel."
It might be, Jon. But not everybody knows how the system works. There are drawbacks and advantages with both those sites and methods. Createspace is based entirely in the US. The books are printed and shipped from there. This is actually a bonus in many ways, because the cost of shipping to the US is a big drawback, and it is probably the best market for a book like this. However, for orders in Europe, this would be a disadvantage. Lulu seems to cater for the European market, but as far as ISBN registering goes, you might not want Lulu as the registered publisher - yes, you can use your own ISBN, but then you could do that without using the services of Lulu.
Obviously, the choice is with the producer of the book, but I'm just pointing out what might not be obvious to someone who has never published, printed or marketed a book before. Even if a service like Lulu does all that, there's no harm in explaining it anyway, and a common stumbling block is pricing without considering the discount that would have to be offered to booksellers - people sometimes base their margins on retail and end up making little.
This article has much that is true, and not news, and some stuff that is out of date or misleading.
Most of the material on retail sales is irrelevant to Davy, since it's aimed at science fiction writers who think their book is going to sell in stores. This book is not going to sell to traditional booksellers. It's going to sell to a few independent music shops, and otherwise sales will be through Mr. Rogers himself.
As for who owns the ISBN, I think that's largely a red herring. The ISBN itself is really not going to be a huge issue since again this book is not likely to sell in traditional bookshops. If it ever does take off, you'll probably want to just hand it over to Mel Bay or somne other established publisher, and that's that taken care of.
Davy, I'd suggest that the most important thing in this equation is an honest assessment of how many copies of this book you think you can sell in a year.
How many people are you performing in front of every year, and what percentage of them will buy a copy? How many records do you sell in a year? How many copies of records containing at least one of these tunes are sold in a given year?
Use these and any other factors you can think of to determine how long it'll be before your minimum print run earns out. That might be a useful number in deciding how to go about this.
You might also want to send your manuscript to Paul Cranford - Breton tunes are more his line, but it's worth a go. If nothing else, he might have some useful input on the more traditional publishing route.
Thank you everyone who offered me advice.
Thanks Kenny re composers info (but I think "Fr. Grady's Trip to Brocagh" was composed by Fr. P.J.Kelly from near Woodford, Co. Galway - rather than Josie McDermott)
Jon, the matter of the services you mention being in the US is quite relevant (Davy is in Ireland) - as is the matter of the registered publisher and who has control of the publication (where the ISBN holder is quite relevant).
As to where the book is going to sell, what you say is pure conjecture. I do have considerable practical experience in music book publishing, and self-publish my books (I mean self-publish in house, no minimum print run).
That the article is on a Sci-fi website is the red herring. All the points raised are just as applicable to a book of guitar tunes.
I agree that the book is unlikely to sell in mainstream bookshops, but it is unlikely to sell via the services you mention too. If you follow the links in that article, you'll find some current information, and it's worth reading it.
Of particular interest is the matter of the quality of binding, which seems to be questionable ("Perfect" binding isn't great for music books, anyway).
It's all down to how you market the book yourself, and, looking at the set up in both those POD companies, there is a lot to be wary of. It's up to Davy himself how he goes about it. I can just make suggestions and offer advice, as you seem to be doing your own way.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/180
You're welcome, Davy - but 1 of the tunes which I'm certain about the composer is "Father O'Grady's Visit To Bocca" - to give it it's title as listed on Josie's "Darby's Farewell" LP record. Robin Morton, who recorded and produced this record in 1977, states categorically in the sleeve notes that this is one of "Josie's own tunes", and relates the story behind the title. The album, which I'm looking at right now, is Topic 12TS325.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. I changed the name of the book to "108 Original Compositions in the Traditional Irish Style" by Davy Rogers. It has a full colour cover, and 42 B&W pages with Index, backing chords and original celtic knot-artwork by my friend Pru Comer. I'm in the process of self publishing it through Createspace. It should be out on Amazon etc by 23rd January 2012 or you can obtain it in PDF format direct from me through www.davyrogers.com
I'll buy a copy, just 'cuz it's an easy way to support a musician - but is there any way we can talk you into putting up a youtube channel of yourself playing the tunes?
Cheers Davy! Truth be told I find your web animations kitschy & obnoxious (are those the same thing?). I say this in a loving manner. No offense mate. But, if you do find time to update things here is a link I think may be worth adding ~ http://www.spraoi.ca/
Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
I have completed work on my book. 108 original tunes with chords. It's available from my website: www.davyrogers.com.
Would anyone like to receive a free reviewers copy and write a reveiw?
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by *Davy Rogers
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Can anyone recommend a music publisher?
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by *Davy Rogers
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Obtain an ISBN and publish it yourself.
http://www.isbn.nielsenbook.co.uk/controller.php?page=121
It will cost you (10 numbers min), and you'll need to tell them that the book is more than just sheet music, but it's worth it. Your publication gets listed, and other benefits.
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Nielsen covers Ireland, as well as the UK.
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Thanks Weejie
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by *Davy Rogers
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
If you use a self-publishing service like lulu or createspace, the ISBN is part of the package. A friend of mine self-published her most recent novel through one of these services after four novels with a traditional publisher, and she's pretty happy with the outcome. I believe she went through createspace, but I couldn't swear to it - in any case, there are a number of options, so you'd want to do your own research.
# Posted on January 14th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Just remember that, when pricing the book, you need to make a profit even at a discounted price to booksellers etc.
The book trade pricing works by having a retail price, which is discounted (35-40% is common) to the trade. This is not like the normal retailing method of having a trade price which is marked up by the retailer.
If you have an ISBN, you can sell via Amazon.
It might be worth contacting Dave Mallinson too.
http://www.mally.com/
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
All of that is more or less baked into the terms at a site like lulu or createspace. I don't see the point in trying to reinvent this particular wheel. This part of the business is all simple math, the stuff that computers do really well. This means it's a commodity good, and that means you can expect competition to set prices reasonably well.
http://www.lulu.com/en/includes/calc_retail_inc.php
https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/
It looks to me like you get pretty close to the same deal on both sites. For lulu, an 8.5X11 black and white book of 150 pages at a royalty of $5 gets a retail price of $24.00, while at createspace, the same size and page count priced at $24.00 gets a final royalty of $5.40. That's pretty close.
It seems to me the mechanical problems of creating the book are more or less solved - you can buy an ISBN, contact a manufacturer, arrange for storage of the finished product, arrange for distributiong and shipping and so forth, but I think you'll find that these guys make money by having thought of all of that for you.
The down side is that they're using on-demand printing, which is pretty good, but not quite as nice as a traditionally produced book. However, unless you want thousands of copies of this book in your garage for years to come, that's really going to be the most attractive option.
So producing and distributing the books is not so much a problem these days. The hard part is figuring out how you get people to buy the book. Traditionally, you'd make good recordings of the tunes and include a CD with the book. These days, you might do better to set up a YouTube channel and make good video clips available that way. This would probably save you a lot of money, all told, and the video channel would advertise the book, assuming the clips looked and sounded reasonably professional.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
It's not like me to complain, but........
.......the title is an oxymoron.
"Tunes in the Irish Traditional Style by........" would be correct.
YOU can't write a traditional anything, because it takes generations for it to be accepted as traditional.
Not to say your tunes aren't good, and would go down well at a session, but that's a different matter.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
"All of that is more or less baked into the terms at a site like lulu or createspace. I don't see the point in trying to reinvent this particular wheel."
It might be, Jon. But not everybody knows how the system works. There are drawbacks and advantages with both those sites and methods. Createspace is based entirely in the US. The books are printed and shipped from there. This is actually a bonus in many ways, because the cost of shipping to the US is a big drawback, and it is probably the best market for a book like this. However, for orders in Europe, this would be a disadvantage. Lulu seems to cater for the European market, but as far as ISBN registering goes, you might not want Lulu as the registered publisher - yes, you can use your own ISBN, but then you could do that without using the services of Lulu.
Obviously, the choice is with the producer of the book, but I'm just pointing out what might not be obvious to someone who has never published, printed or marketed a book before. Even if a service like Lulu does all that, there's no harm in explaining it anyway, and a common stumbling block is pricing without considering the discount that would have to be offered to booksellers - people sometimes base their margins on retail and end up making little.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Some of the pros and cons of a print-on -demand service and true self-publishing:
http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/pod/
It just about covers my own misgivings.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
This article has much that is true, and not news, and some stuff that is out of date or misleading.
Most of the material on retail sales is irrelevant to Davy, since it's aimed at science fiction writers who think their book is going to sell in stores. This book is not going to sell to traditional booksellers. It's going to sell to a few independent music shops, and otherwise sales will be through Mr. Rogers himself.
As for who owns the ISBN, I think that's largely a red herring. The ISBN itself is really not going to be a huge issue since again this book is not likely to sell in traditional bookshops. If it ever does take off, you'll probably want to just hand it over to Mel Bay or somne other established publisher, and that's that taken care of.
Davy, I'd suggest that the most important thing in this equation is an honest assessment of how many copies of this book you think you can sell in a year.
How many people are you performing in front of every year, and what percentage of them will buy a copy? How many records do you sell in a year? How many copies of records containing at least one of these tunes are sold in a given year?
Use these and any other factors you can think of to determine how long it'll be before your minimum print run earns out. That might be a useful number in deciding how to go about this.
You might also want to send your manuscript to Paul Cranford - Breton tunes are more his line, but it's worth a go. If nothing else, he might have some useful input on the more traditional publishing route.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
I had a look at the reels section of your tabs, Davy. You might like to add the following composers to the credits :
59 - "Charleston" - Jimmy Keane
67 - "Coachman's Whip" - Vincent Broderick
83 - "Controversial" - Billy McComiskey
101 - "Darby's Farewell To London" - Josie McDermott
109 - "Destitution" - Ian Stevenson
150 - "Fr. Grady's Trip To Bocca" - Josie McDermott
151 - "Fr. Newman's" - John Brady
217 - "Imelda Roland's" - Imelda Roland
233 - "Kilfada" - Larry Redican
241 - "Kylebrack Rambler" - Finbarr Dwyer
268 - "Love At The Endings" - Ed Reavy
324 - "Mountain Road" - Michael Gorman
374 - "Paddy Taylor's" - Paddy Taylor
385 - "Porthole Of The Kelp" - Bobby Casey
392 - "Raheen" - Phil Murphy
485 - "Trip To Durrow" - Dan Cleary
To the best of my knowledge, the above information is true.
and a query - was "Dinky [ Dorrian's ]" a composition of Francie Byrne ? Hadn't heard that before.
Best of luck with the book.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Kenny
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Thank you everyone who offered me advice.
Thanks Kenny re composers info (but I think "Fr. Grady's Trip to Brocagh" was composed by Fr. P.J.Kelly from near Woodford, Co. Galway - rather than Josie McDermott)
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by *Davy Rogers
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Jon, the matter of the services you mention being in the US is quite relevant (Davy is in Ireland) - as is the matter of the registered publisher and who has control of the publication (where the ISBN holder is quite relevant).
As to where the book is going to sell, what you say is pure conjecture. I do have considerable practical experience in music book publishing, and self-publish my books (I mean self-publish in house, no minimum print run).
That the article is on a Sci-fi website is the red herring. All the points raised are just as applicable to a book of guitar tunes.
I agree that the book is unlikely to sell in mainstream bookshops, but it is unlikely to sell via the services you mention too. If you follow the links in that article, you'll find some current information, and it's worth reading it.
Of particular interest is the matter of the quality of binding, which seems to be questionable ("Perfect" binding isn't great for music books, anyway).
It's all down to how you market the book yourself, and, looking at the set up in both those POD companies, there is a lot to be wary of. It's up to Davy himself how he goes about it. I can just make suggestions and offer advice, as you seem to be doing your own way.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Weejie
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Okay, weejie. I think this horse is dead now. I'm going to stop hitting it for a while.
"I can just make suggestions and offer advice, as you seem to be doing your own way."
Yep. I think that's what we're both doing.
Good luck, Davy. Let us know when it comes out.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/180
You're welcome, Davy - but 1 of the tunes which I'm certain about the composer is "Father O'Grady's Visit To Bocca" - to give it it's title as listed on Josie's "Darby's Farewell" LP record. Robin Morton, who recorded and produced this record in 1977, states categorically in the sleeve notes that this is one of "Josie's own tunes", and relates the story behind the title. The album, which I'm looking at right now, is Topic 12TS325.
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Kenny
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/130
# Posted on January 15th 2012 by Kenny
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Well its good stuff Davy,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBFrruh3ORw
jim,,,
# Posted on January 16th 2012 by FIDDLE4
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Jim, "it's" with the apostrophe. With the apostrophe!
# Posted on January 16th 2012 by NewToItAll
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Shame! He missed hi's opportunity!
# Posted on January 17th 2012 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Jim's apostrophes are like R's in a Boston accent. They not only appear where you don't expect them, they disappear where they were expected!
# Posted on January 17th 2012 by AlBrown
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
OK
Good stuff !
: )
jim,,,
# Posted on January 17th 2012 by FIDDLE4
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
More good stuff ! Davy.
jim,,,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XjMzkjzTZI&feature=youtu.be
# Posted on January 17th 2012 by FIDDLE4
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. I changed the name of the book to "108 Original Compositions in the Traditional Irish Style" by Davy Rogers. It has a full colour cover, and 42 B&W pages with Index, backing chords and original celtic knot-artwork by my friend Pru Comer. I'm in the process of self publishing it through Createspace. It should be out on Amazon etc by 23rd January 2012 or you can obtain it in PDF format direct from me through www.davyrogers.com
# Posted on January 17th 2012 by *Davy Rogers
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
I'll buy a copy, just 'cuz it's an easy way to support a musician - but is there any way we can talk you into putting up a youtube channel of yourself playing the tunes?
# Posted on January 18th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Compositions by Davy Rogers
Cheers Davy! Truth be told I find your web animations kitschy & obnoxious (are those the same thing?). I say this in a loving manner. No offense mate. But, if you do find time to update things here is a link I think may be worth adding ~
http://www.spraoi.ca/
# Posted on January 18th 2012 by ain't fluffed