Big Book 2

[filkertom]

Okay, another marketing question. I hope you won't mind.

I'm working once more on Tom Smith's Big Book of Stupid Filk Tricks -- The Director's Cut. I hope to finally have it done by Labor Day. It will have every song I can find that I had something to do with, including improv's if I've got recordings, and guitar chords for the original ones.

The only way that this can reasonably be published is electronically. A printed songbook would be thick, heavy, insanely expensive, and I'd have to lug 'em around. We did that. Ain't doin' it again. I'll let you print whatever pages you want.

When I get done with it, the only lyrics I'm going to leave on the main site are the ones that are actually on recordings. I think this is [a] reasonable and [b] a selling point for the BBoSFT.

So:

• .html, .pdf, or both?
• Large print (so that many songs would take up two pages) or small (so that a song can fit on one page)?
• It's around 300 songs, and I'm thinking $12.00-$15.00 for the download, a dollar more for a disk at cons. Reasonable? Too much? Too little?

Thanks.

ETA: Okay, I started getting some serious requests for sheet music. I was planning to make it a fake book, i.e., lyrics and chords. But a number of people want melody lines, for valid reasons.

I'm really thinking hard about it. I had discarded the idea, because it would be a lot of work, and because recordings are available. If I do it, it will add a significant amount of time to the project. And most likely bump the price to $20. Just so you know.

Comments

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I personally loathe .pdf, but I know lots of folks don't mind. Both, probably.

I'd rather small print.

And 300 songs for $15.00 is a kick ass deal. I can't recall how much I paid for Stupid Filk Tricks 1; it was awhile back.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

$12.00, as I recall.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Certainly at least PDF, because HTML is not to be trusted for printing. HTML is better to navigate, though, so if you can do both, go for it.

I think I'd prefer large print. Two pages isn't a lot more tricky than one when, for example, reading from a stand or printed filkbook, but the larger font can make it much, much easier to read.

Too little, honestly. I think you could get away with around $20.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

What's the overhead in producing both large-print and small-print versions? Being electronic, it might be worthwhile to offer both, particularly because a lot of people will probably want to fit printouts into existing binders of filk music, and they'd want it to fit as well as possible...

The price sounds right, though. I'd make it $14 online/$15 on disk to make the in-person cash transactions easier, but that's just me thinking about logistics.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Have you considered print-on-demand via Lulu? The Pirate Guys used it to publish the insanely long serialized pirate tale they've been writing on their blog, and they're delighted with the way it turned out.

The end result would probably be more expensive than self-publishing via .pdf (which is the way I'd go, for printability), but you could offer a lulu-printed-and-bound version for those who want something more book-like and substantial; I think you could even use the same .pdf files for Lulu. And there are no up-front costs...with a little foresight you could even do it from the same .pdf files. And there are no up-front costs.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Did I mention there are no up-front costs? (Typing and eating lunch=bad mix).

I'd buy that for a dollar

[ericcoleman]

or 15 ... even 20 as someone else said

PDF is the easiest to deal with across the board ... that would be my preference.

So, when are you taking pre-orders ???

Re: I'd buy that for a dollar

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

When it's DONE. And not a moment before. :)

[killernurd.livejournal.com]

PDF - that way, it doesn't matter where you print it, it all prints the same.

$15 for the download is reasonable - consider that songbooks 1/10 that size sell for as much; the extra material should more than make up the cost not spent on a professionally printed and bound book. An extra buck for an archive disc is reasonable, since you'd have to spend the time to burn them.

You might want to consider offering (in small quantities) an actual printed and bound version, or (when you get a PDF done) offer one on Cafe Press.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

PDF - that way, it doesn't matter where you print it, it all prints the same.

Would if that were really true. It isn't. Too much depends on which fonts your printer has, which version of Adobe created the PDF and which version is reading it, et cetera. For ordinary PDFs this ranges from mildly annoying to egregiously so; I would find that unacceptable for printing sheet music.

Woo!

[ttamsen.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I'd never heard your stuff when the first one came out, or I'd already be an owner.

Re Volume 2: The price is right, and HTML (or other raw format) by preference, please. There are no shortage of free (X)->PDF conversion utilities, but by design very very few that can do much of anything going in the other direction. And PDFs *suck* on my PDA, which is where it would live.

Re: Woo!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The original Big Book was all the parodies I'd written up until publication time in early 1997. It's been ten years, and not only have there been a lot more parodies written but I'm also putting in all the original songs. So I think you'll find it worth the wait.

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

I truly hate and despise .pdf, because I cannot do anything with it *except* print it. I can't change the line spacing to leave myself room for notes. I can't change the font size to make it larger if I'm putting out a single copy for both instrumentalist and singers to be able to see. I can play with HTML or OpenOffice or similar formats if I need to.

That said, your proposed charge is a steal!

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Yeah; there is *that* about PDF.
An alternate might be .rtf, which *does* allow for font size adjustments.

[sdelmonte]

I'd lean towards PDFs, single page format when possible - I've been singing "Seven Drunken Nights in Space" from a single page format for a while, and I'm not blind yet! - and the lower price. Though it will be a steal at a higher one, as well.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Why the extra charge for the disk at cons? (Please note: I'm not trying to imply that you SHOULDN'T charge extra there, just wondering why that would be the case.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Literally, just the physical disk and the effort it takes to make it. Unlike the burned versions of the download albums (which use the raw .wav files I make the MP3s from), this would be exactly the same data file, so the only difference would be for the time and supplies.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

1) Both.
2) Again, both.
3) $15 is eminently reasonable. $1-2 more for the disk is also reasonable.

To explain the Both comments:
1 (explained) If people are downloading a file, give them their choice of format. More choices for your rabid fansclients should equal more money for you. If you're figuring the one file will contain every format you use, well, that's good for high speed people like me but not for low-bandwidth people. You could make it so the site gives you unlimited downloads of the files to their IP address for a limited time, so if they don't like one format they can re-download in the other.

2 (explained) See 1 (explained) above. It will take a couple of extra hours for the formatting differences between text types, but it would be time well spent.

I still wish I had your gift for teh silly in song.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

1. Yes.
2. I'd go one page, but then my glasses actually let me read; some folks are just too vain for that. ;-) (Not you, obviously.)
3. Sounds very reasonable.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Options on format at the download, please.
Trifocal-friendly, please.
Price sounds reasonable.

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

html, .pdf, or both?

I was leaning towards both but after reading the division in comments, I definitely think that.

Large print (so that many songs would take up two pages) or small (so that a song can fit on one page)?

That's a tough one. If it wouldn't be difficult I would say both. One is better for transport and the other for seeing.

It's around 300 songs, and I'm thinking $12.00-$15.00 for the download, a dollar more for a disk at cons. Reasonable? Too much? Too little?

Price seems pretty reasonable.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I have a question: Are you worried about piracy? Once it's electronic, it's very easy to be passed around.

(One perfectly fine answer is: No, I'm not worried about piracy.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. It's the same ol' same ol' as with the music files. If someone is going to rip me off, he will. That person isn't my customer.

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

My two pence
.pdf
small print
that seems quite reasonable


and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Both, by strong preference (because each has different strengths, and it's not terribly hard to convert).

Large print. With sheet music. (Which is the real selling point; pulling lyrics from the site seems like a poor move to me. I'd say "unprofessional" except that, not being a pro myself, I concede that I'm not in a position to judge on that basis.)

Price seems reasonable.

Add another recommendation for Lulu; I've heard nothing but good about them.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

Okay. As a guy with some publishing experience, I can suggest some things.

For the people who "hate PDF," get in some fashion, legal if you can, a copy of the full Adobe Acrobat. It allows you to do lots of things to that horrible PDF file whose spacing you don't like. Like...copy the text of the pages into your word processor, put it in whatever big size you need so you can read it without your granny spectacles...and make it into a new PDF! And you do that easily because with the full Acrobat, you get a new printer called "PDF Printer" that you can print anything to. There are other programs that can produce PDF files, but the original Acrobat makes the resulting file smaller and more readable by all computers.

Second, I know how you travel, Tom, having seen the load you carried to OASIS. Carrying around paper books is really difficult. It's also a warehousing problem. If you happen to own a laser printer - because printing that way is fairly fast for black and white - you could carry one or two copies, and show them, and maybe sell them...but not before all interested parties order from you a Book On Demand.

When you get home, you print the copy of the book to that person. You bind and lay it out. If you want to get real crafty, you can imprint the person's name on the book cover when you bind the pages together. This keeps you from having a back inventory of books that you might never sell, which could rot away in huge stacks when your garage leaks. My old publisher kept inventories of his magazine; now it's all wet, mushy pulp.

Third, if you're going to go this far, and if you think it's worth it, print the book not simply as a lyric book, but as a Fake Book. You know, basic guitar chords and named chords for pianos and a single melody line. Make sure you include your copyright on every page of the book. License the person to print a copy of a song as long as your copyright is on every printed page, and as long as the duplicates are not sold, only used for personal purposes.

You can probably obtain the software to produce such stuff fairly easily, although most of it that I've heard of uses both the treble and bass staff. You might have to search for the right program to do the job.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

(1) The last I knew, a legal copy of the full Acrobat cost hundreds of dollars. Most people don't buy software that expensive for casual hobby use.

(2) To print copies of something this big, Tom would need a real printer with duplex capability and a high duty cycle. Expensive and too big to carry around.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

Another vote for both and both and sounds good to me.

Plus a side vote echoing: sheet music for the original tunes would be wonderful. (But might add too much work to putting it out.)

sheet music?

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

Sounds great on the price. I'd like the size to be large enough that people can stand around a music stand and be able to read it, but size/ needing glasses is a matter of opinion, sometimes.

Also, one pet peeve. I've seen many song parody books that say "To the tune of", which may be fine if it's a very popular rock song. You can google those. But what if it's a parody of a once popular filk song that's been out of print for 20+ years? Where the heck do you ever get the sheet music, or hear a recording? And worse, what if the parody writer had no idea that they were doing a parody of a parody, and now nobody remembers the name of the original tune? Could make it tricky to google... I'd really like it if there could be sheet music printed with the songs. Website links tend to not last very long, sometimes. It would also make it easy to play along with keyboards, recorders, flutes, etc..

Yeah, that would make for a pretty large printed book, sure. Maybe add a special bonus disc with sheet music? I noticed you said somewhere above that the book wouldn't contain stuff that hasn't been recorded, so at least we'd be able to get a sound sample somewhere.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I'm going to offer a contrarian viewpoint, on the theory that if I'm thinking it there probably are some other people thinking it too.

$15 for a download is a lot. When I buy a physical book, I am mainly paying for the physical object, both the initial printing and the handling to get it to me. Admittedly, this download would have a lot in it. It's not so high that I wouldn't consider buying it -- in fact, I almost certainly would. But I'm a longtime fan, and there are a lot of Tom's songs I'd like to get my grubby paws on. If another artist I only knew a little about offered the same deal, or if I was a newcomer to Tom and only knew about a few songs I wanted, I wouldn't pay that much. In my view, appropriate pricing depends on whether you're trying to reach a small group of hardcore completists, or if you'd like every filker in the English speaking world with a computer to have a copy.

Perhaps I'm just a hopeless cheapskate and don't deserve to have cool stuff offered to me. I don't want to argue the issue; I'm just throwing out a data point.

Once Again, I Could Go Off On This For Awhile. But....

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Seven words which may help your perspective: The songbook file will not assemble itself.

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

I'd certainly pay $20 for the book with melody lines (electronic book, of course).

For the book with just chords, maybe something more like $10-12.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

As to format: I'd love to see both HTML and PDF available if it doesn't add a lot of extra work (i.e., if you can generate one of those formats automatically from the other, with the results being useful). I hate viewing documents on screen as PDFs, but if I'm going to print it, I want PDF.

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

Want. :)

As much as you can cram into it, whatever format.

Admittedly, I have preferences:

PDF- for printability.
Large Print - cause I suck that way.
Melody lines if you can manage - cause I'm a better pianist than guitarist. (Pretend it's an 88 string gi-tar...)


Anyhoo... I'd say that $12-15 is on the cheap. The folks at hero games regularly get away with $20 for shorter books, for example.

Thanks!

[wynjara.livejournal.com]

I will fall at your feet for sheet music. I'll settle for chords :) But $20? No problem. At all. Esp. since it doesn't have shipping to add, unless the internet started charging things when I wasn't looking.