How rude is it to ask someone about their print run?

Is it pretty close to asking someone their salary?

Someone asked me about my book’s print run, and I really don’t have any idea! Waiting for the first report from the publisher, but it did feel like he was asking about my income.

Rude.

When someone gets a book published you congratulate them. Asking how big the print run was is potentially shaming. Because most authors wish their initial print run was bigger.

I always think of Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled for which he was paid $7500 and had a print run of 5,000. It ultimately was on the New York Times best seller list for 694 weeks and sold 7 million copies.

Thanks for these comments!
I wondered if that might be the case.

quote:

Originally posted by kluurs:
I always think of Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled for which he was paid $7500 and had a print run of 5,000. It ultimately was on the New York Times best seller list for 694 weeks and sold 7 million copies.

Whoa!

Not an author but it would strike me as quite inappropriate unless you were very close friends.

Academic print runs are usually low if the book is likely to be of primary interest to scholars and the libraries at their universities. If the book then starts to sell to a wider audience, the press can do another print run, and another, etc. In the olden days there used to be a lot of fixed costs in setting up a print run. No more. The publishers just hit the "print button" again, so to speak. Fewer trees wasted, remaindered books, etc.

Yes, it's a rude question. It's also an ignorant question, which is just as bad.

OK, I'll put this out there.

My memory of this is a bit foggy but I think I recall being told that the initial print run of Why Does College Cost so Much would be only 1,000. Oxford University Press had a contract to sell around that many copies to global libraries, so they knew all of that print run would have a home. I think they had a second run of 1,000 already in the works for public sales, which they anticipated would sop up much of that run. After the first good spate of publicity (two NY Times pieces) they hit the print button a few more times and agreed to a paperback version.

I haven't a clue how many they ultimately printed, and the grand total really didn't matter much to me, professionally.

The e-book complicates any counting, as does stuff like Google-Books, and Oxford University Press's own online service that just about every university subscribes to. For example ...

on Oxford Scholarship Online

If your university subscribes, every faculty member or student has instant access. That cuts into your own sales volume of the physical book. By the way, presses don't usually pay the same royalty on an e-book sale as they do on a printed copy.

You're a lucky academic if your scholarly book winds up as coffee table material. Thomas Piketty made a mint that way! I'm guessing only one in a hundred people who bought that "best seller" actually read more than a chapter or two before putting it back on the coffee table to show their friends how smart they are!

So for more background and how I got to this question.

I have a friend (American, native speaker of English) who wrote a work of fiction in Japanese that won a literary award (top prize) in Japan. Part of the top prize is a book contract with Japan’s biggest publishing house. His book was published last fall.

So yeah, this is a huge deal! It would be a huge deal for anyone, but for a native speaker of English writing in Japanese, well it’s an even bigger deal. There are very few published authors in Japanese who are truly non-native speakers (didn’t grow up in Japan or grow up bilingually) and who have English as their first language.

I’ve designed a class around this book and am teaching it this semester, so he and I have been messaging a lot about all kinds of things related to it, and also to the publishing industry in Japan etc. He’s going to give a talk to my class near the end of the semester.

Most of my students bought his book from Amazon Japan. I recently noticed that the book was unavailable and learned from him that it had sold out and they were doing a second print run. Wow!

Then the other day, I learned of another American who just had a fictional work that she wrote (in Japanese) published with a reputable publisher (though not as famous or prestigious as the publisher my friend’s book is with).

The news article about her said that her print run was 3000 copies. I had no idea what a standard print run is so I had no frame of reference for whether that’s a standard amount, less that usual, more etc…

I had thought I would ask my friend about his print runs, but then realized that, while my reason for asking was not related to interest in how much he stands to make from the book, it ties into his earnings and probably was not a good thing to ask. Hence this thread!

BTW, P*D, I wasn’t thinking about academic books here, but of course since starting this thread, I’ve been googling around and can see that print runs for academic books are much smaller!

My book is under contract with a trade academic publisher based in the UK (so, not a UP). I need to go back and look at my contract, but I don’t think it lists a print run, although it does include ISBNs for hardcover, paperback and ebook. Whatever that means (IOW, I think that doesn’t mean there will necessarily be a paperback version, I think the numbers are put there just in case. Although I do think there will be an ebook version, if for nothing else than for library copies)

I am not expecting to earn any money from this book. Just tenure.

Anyway, this is all new to me, I find it fascinating to think about all the details.

A young (20 something) friend and former associate attorney in my former law firm was writing her first novel in her spare time, which was spare. She got an agent, a very favorable blurb from fellow Mainer Stephen King, and what she called “silly money” as an advance. Later learned “silly” meant six or seven figures, enough to allow her to quit law and start her next book. Never occurred to me to ask about “print run” and I would assumes sales would be a more relevant number.



The Damage by Caitlin Wahrer. Great book.

Jf

quote:

Never occurred to me to ask about “print run” and I would assumes sales would be a more relevant number

Well, now you really are talking about someone's earnings. (Which, again, was not my original, or even my current, interest.)

BTW the book I mentioned above by the American whom I don't know is listed as having only three more copies on Amazon Japan. I'm ordering one now.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
So for more background and how I got to this question.

I have a friend (American, native speaker of English) who wrote a work of fiction in Japanese that won a literary award (top prize) in Japan. Part of the top prize is a book contract with Japan’s biggest publishing house. His book was published last fall.

So yeah, this is a huge deal! It would be a huge deal for anyone, but for a native speaker of English writing in Japanese, well it’s an even bigger deal. There are very few published authors in Japanese who are truly non-native speakers (didn’t grow up in Japan or grow up bilingually) and who have English as their first language.

I’ve designed a class around this book and am teaching it this semester, so he and I have been messaging a lot about all kinds of things related to it, and also to the publishing industry in Japan etc. He’s going to give a talk to my class near the end of the semester.

Most of my students bought his book from Amazon Japan. I recently noticed that the book was unavailable and learned from him that it had sold out and they were doing a second print run. Wow!

Then the other day, I learned of another American who just had a fictional work that she wrote (in Japanese) published with a reputable publisher (though not as famous or prestigious as the publisher my friend’s book is with).

The news article about her said that her print run was 3000 copies. I had no idea what a standard print run is so I had no frame of reference for whether that’s a standard amount, less that usual, more etc…

I had thought I would ask my friend about his print runs, but then realized that, while my reason for asking was not related to interest in how much he stands to make from the book, it ties into his earnings and probably was not a good thing to ask. Hence this thread!

BTW, P*D, I wasn’t thinking about academic books here, but of course since starting this thread, I’ve been googling around and can see that print runs for academic books are much smaller!

My book is under contract with a trade academic publisher based in the UK (so, not a UP). I need to go back and look at my contract, but I don’t think it lists a print run, although it does include ISBNs for hardcover, paperback and ebook. Whatever that means (IOW, I think that doesn’t mean there will necessarily be a paperback version, I think the numbers are put there just in case. Although I do think there will be an ebook version, if for nothing else than for library copies)

I am not expecting to earn any money from this book. Just tenure.

Anyway, this is all new to me, I find it fascinating to think about all the details.

Congratulations on your book contract, SK! That is a huge deal! Bask in the glow!

So print runs are not decided usually until after the publicity department has had a go at drumming up interest. That usually happens as soon as your book appears in the publisher's catalogue, and the editor meets with the sales team to get them all excited about your book. After they have lauded your book to booksellers, they take a look at preliminary sales orders and extrapolate what the initial press run should be from those initial orders. At least, this is how it is done at the big publishing houses. I don't know about academic publishers.

So a small initial press run just means the response the sales team got wasn't overwhelming.

But that may not be the fault of the book or even reflect on the author.

Maybe the jacket design was lame. Maybe the inside flap copy sucked. Maybe the agent didn't follow through on providing blurbs from famous authors in his stable. There are so many moving parts to this.

In my own case, I did a terrible job of marketing Grand Obsession before it was even written. I didn't understand what a huge platform I had, or even that that platform mattered to the publisher. I mean, they didn't even look at Piano World until after the book was published. When they saw how many unique views it got every day... well, I would have received a much bigger advance and press run had they known about that. That was my fault for not understanding how book markets work.

Then, another mistake I made--though it could not be helped--I missed my last deadline, and the book was already in the summer catalogue. And they only put the book in the catalogue once. So when the book came out in January, it wasn't in the winter catalogue. So, pre-orders were pretty much non-existent. Sales people weren't selling it. Again, I had no understanding of how this all worked.

So the publisher's initial press run was pretty small. Upsettingly small.

But then, another surprise: rave reviews in all the major news outlets. This left the publisher scrambling--the book went into a second, then a third printing, all in one week. Then they did a big press run and started paying for prime placement in book stores. And I went on the road and hand sold it and gave away copies, and went on TV and radio all over the country. I paid my own way or I got others to pay my way who benefited from the book. And suddenly I started to understand marketing, and its critical importance to your book, even before the book is written.

It takes a certain kind of mindset that has to be acquired.

So yes,the number of my first press run humiliated me. Anyone who had asked about it would have been putting salt in a wound.

And since a huge majority of books go straight to the remainders table, the vast majority of writers are going to feel the same way about their initial press run. The fact that most famous writers have lived through that humbling experience isn't of much comfort. You pour your blood and sweat into something for years, and then nobody takes much notice.

My experience was an anomaly. My editor was so unaware (again, my fault) of the potential audience for Grand Obsession, he planned on taking me and my husband out for a quiet drink after my debut reading at B&N, just the three of us. Those of you who were there know that it was SRO, and my editor, on seeing with shock and surprise that he didn't have to soften the blow as he usually did, went home to his kids instead of out with our party.

Bottom line, nobody knows what will or won't sell. It's a mystery.

People ask "How much land do you have?" or farm
or whatever. I don't bother pointing out how rude that is because people think they have a right to know.
Because it was an impressive figure "back when" I sometimes told them and then asked, "How much money do you have?" It is the same question, but somehow they seem offended. I point out that there is no difference.
Come to think of it, I don't think any of those people became friends.

Yes, "How much land do you have (farm)?" is rude.

When I first came out to Montana, I was taken in by one of the oldest ranch families in the state. I did ask the patriarch of the family how big the ranch was. He did a little figuring, then told me! It was only later that I learned you don't ever ask this question. But Jack knew I was just a greenhorn from the big city and he didn't really mind.