What is the optimum selling price for numismatic books?

[RWB]

A great many new numismatic books are coming on the market and their retail prices seem to be "all over the place." What do board members think is a fair selling price for a 300 page 8.5x11 book in hardcover and paperback? How about 6x9 paperback (as in the Whitman "Guide Book" series).

[pendragon1998]

Not that I usually buy books at retail anyway (being a big fan of buying used via half.com), but here's my opinion (which probably doesn't reflect the actual market's opinions) :

 

I think that $12 - $15 is appropriate for a 6x9 paperback, depending on quality. I'd feel comfortable paying $20 - $23 for a hardback book of similar size. I don't think that I've seen any 8.5x11 guides out there, as that's a little too large to comfortably read. Any larger and you're really talking coffee table book, which I'd only pay up to around $25. Coffee table books usually start out more around $50, I should think, but often end up on the bargan aisle.

 

Those are prices that I'd be happy with as a consumer, but depending on the potential market, the publishing costs, the advertising costs, and the profit desired, actual market prices might be different. In today's publishing market, it can be really hard for an individual - without a publisher strongly backing them - to break into the market. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to get your book into the chain bookstores and into good shelf positions. If I'm guessing correctly, you're thinking of putting out a book? I thought of becoming a writer at one point, but after talking to a publisher/editor who taught one of my classes, decided that there were easier ways to make a living, such as being a July bricklayer in Georgia.

[gmarguli]

I'll spend $10-$15 for practically any book on coins - even if the chance of me reading it is slim. At $15-$30 it has to be one that I'd want and likely use. Once you get above $30 for a book, I have to really want it. Don't consider going much above $30.

[DaveG]

Roger,

 

Don't let the two jokers above get you down - they obviously don't buy any numismatic books except for the Red Book.

 

Personally, while I'm glad the guys behind Whitman Publications are spending a ton of money on their new "Red Book of" series, I can't imagine they're making much (or even any) profit on the series. It'll be interesting to see if those books stay in print.

 

Obviously, they can have much larger print runs than the typical 2,000 or so copies of most numismatic books, so they can price them lower than an individual (who is essentially self-publishing). I still can't imagine that they sell more than a few thousand copies, though.

 

I think your Renaissance of American Coinage books are an excellent value for what they deliver. I thought that the 2nd edition of Bust Half Fever (at about $80, if I recall correctly) also delivered excellent value. I think the collected volumes of The Gobrecht Journal deliver excellent value for about $60 or so. Doug Winter's books deliver outstanding value for $30-$35.

 

On the other hand, I thought Highfill's Silver Dollar Encyclopedia was a waste of money - and I got it as a gift!

 

Unfortunately, I think that it's true (from what dealers and numismatic booksellers have told me), most coin collectors - even those who buy $5,000 coins - will hesitate to spend $100 for a book.

[gmarguli]

Don't let the two jokers above get you down - they obviously don't buy any numismatic books except for the Red Book.

 

Who ya calling a joker?

 

Actually, I was assuming that he was talking about a book that was going to be widely wanted by the public and have a decent print run. I was thinking along the lines of something like the Sayles ancient coin books. If he is writing more of a speciality book, then my prices are way too low. For a 300 page hardbound speciality book, I'd pay at least $35.

[pendragon1998]

Ditto.

 

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of birding guides, of which I own somewhere around 20. For a hobby with less of a following than birding, the prices would have to be higher. Lots of birders, not many numismatists.

 

And I do own more than just the Red Book

[jtryka]

Roger, I thought the pricing of your book was quite reasonable, especially given the number of images and extensive research involved. For books like yours, I would expect to pay between $50-75, for a newly published Overton volume I would expect to pay about $100 or so (I think I paid $75 for my used 1990 edition!). For the redbook series I would be hard pressed to pay $20 for them (I bought the double eagle book and it was not nearly as good as Akers'). For an update to the Akers' 20th Century Gold book, I would be willing to pay up to $40 for it, perhaps more depending on what incremental information was included.

[Hoot]

300 page 8.5x11 book in hardcover and paperback?

 

For a new text of this size, matching the quality of your books, I'd expect to pay from $45 to $80, and would not blink an eye if they fell into that price range. If I knew of the personal sacrifice of an author and the difficulty of publishing with the high quality that represents a true scholarly endeavor, I'd pay more, up to $150 per text.

 

Most of my numismatic library falls in the $40 to $100 realm, with a reasonable number of smaller, modern paperback references in the $10-$15 range. I'll pay $15 for a new Red Book reference, but not because the content is cheap (those written by Bowers and the new FE/IHC reference by Snow are excellent), rather the printing/publishing is intended to target that market.

 

The most I've ever paid for a numismatic reference is $500, and I've bought a few at $100 to $250. Their content is invaluable.

 

Hoot

[pendragon1998]

In this day and age, I just don't see any justification for selling a book for upwards of $100. My opinion is that if you can't market a book at a profit (and profit's the goal) for less than $100, you should consider some sort of online or cd/dvd-rom publication instead.

 

For example, one of the more comprehensive ornithological references, The Birds of North America Online switched several years ago to an online subscription site. The site offers detailed species accounts for over 700 species, which had originally been offered in print at substantial cost. Now, individual memberships are available at $40/yr & $72/2 yr. Content is regularly updated with photos, text, and video as more research is done on a given species.

 

Take that business model to numismatics:

You could have an online subscription site, perhaps run by the red book guide, for an example. For $30-50/year, or (my preference) a one-time life member fee, you could have accesss to all the coin publications put out by that company. New books would be added as they were written. Nothing would ever be out of print. If your collecting interests changed, you wouldn't have a bunch of less-useful books you paid a lot for and you wouldn't have to buy new ones. Best of all, with a laptop or internet-ready PDA, you could carry your entire "bookshelf" of coin books and price guides with you right onto a coin show floor.

 

Hum...that sounds like a workable model, actually.

[IGWT]

$75-$95 and $15-$25, respectively.

[DaveG]

Pendragon,

 

I think a web-based book is a great idea for a topic that's updated frequently. Gerry Fortin's seated dime website is a good example and the Overton book could probably be put on the web, too.

 

However, for "one-time" projects, like Roger's (or like most numismatic books), I'm not sure that it would be practical to put the content on the web instead of on paper. After all, if you sell 1,000 copies of a book at $35, that's total revenue of $35,000, less printing, distribution and retailer's markup. Let's say an author sees $7,000-$10,000 of that.

 

If your total audience is about 1,000 people, how much can you charge them for a web-based version? I'm not sure I'd pay $5/year for access to a book that I would normally pay $35 for, but let's say that the author charges that. (If the author asks $10/year, I might join for long enough to download/print the contents, but after that? If so, does the author only get $10 or $20 in revenue for each subscriber?)

 

Is $5,000 enough to pay for a good website? Can the author get enough people to renew for enough years to generate $7,000 in profit for himself?

[RWB]

Thanks to all for the responses and suggestions. Your assistance is appreciated! I'm just trying to gauge price/format/content for a couple of future projects. (The 3rd Renaissance book, 1909-1915, will be the same format as the others, but probably shorter - so the price will be lower.)

 

Re: publishing on a web site or CD.

These have fundamental copyright problems particularly for images belonging to others. Each of my books has one or more images that are used only with printed book rights and the owners refuse to allow any electronic format use. That kills both CD and web.

 

Web sites are also unacceptable because they lack permanence.