Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica for Dummies

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

"The man" ordered paper and press runs several months in advance, and already had a book length in mind when I was approached. "The man" was not publishing my book. Rather, I was doing the work of authoring a title in their series.

Even when a book originates with an author and is sold to a publisher, as with Kim Field's "Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers," the publisher is footing the bill for paper, press run, shipping, and getting it on shelves. Their marketing team are the ones with some idea how well something will sell and at what price point.

So it's neither surprising nor sinister that a publisher gets to determine what they're paying for and to shape what they're selling.

And while I would have liked to have covered some things more fully, comments from readers seem to indicate that the publisher didn't do such a terrible job at figuring what to trim.

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Sat, 2/7/09, Richard Hammersley <rhhammersley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Richard Hammersley <rhhammersley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica for Dummies
To: "Joe and Cass Leone" <leone@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx, harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 1:36 AM

More pages raise the production costs of the book. Below books that will be true
mass sellers, publishers have their price brackets and marketing finely worked
out, so they want to stick to size. Besides, for every book written too short
the other 100 are written too long and could do with a trim.
Richard
On 7 Feb 2009, at 01:54, Joe and Cass Leone wrote:

> 
> On Feb 6, 2009, at 6:02 PM, Winslow Yerxa wrote:
> 
>> Thanks for the great review, Richard.
>> 
>> I want everyone to know that space was my only reason for not
including a mention of your CD. Late in the editing process we had to make cuts
to keep the book within the required length.
> 
> Something I always wondered. Why does a publisher get to determine what is
in a book and how thick it should be. Just another way 'tha man'
controls our lives. No need to answer. Just fodder for thought.
> 
> keyser sosa
> 
>> Originally I had two chapters with lists of artists and CDs. I very
much regretted cutting down this information, as I wanted to give people a broad
variety of listening. In the end I was forced to pare down the list of CDs to
only the all-time "greats" while trying to keep some semblance of
stylistic variety and pick CDs that readers had a good chance of finding in
major retail outlets.
>> 
>> Winslow
>> 
>> Winslow Yerxa
>> 
>> Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
>> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
>> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l

Richard Hammersley
Grantshouse, Scottish Borders
http://www.last.fm/music/Richard+Hammersley
http://www.myspace.com/rhammersley
http://www.myspace.com/magpiesittingdown