What I Learned About Business from My Two Decades as a Publisher of Printed Books
I started publishing Remnant Review in May 1974.
I got into book production in 1976. I converted a series of Remnant Review newsletters into a low-cost paperback book. It was simply a reproduction of the newsletters. I did not typeset it. It was more like a special report: 8 ½ x 11, glued binding. In retrospect, it was a low-quality product. But it got me started.
To sell that book, I had to learn direct-response marketing. I wrote an ad, and I ran it in a lot of magazines. I paid to have the book typeset and made into a hardback book. I sold about 20,000 copies of the book at $10 apiece, plus postage, and out of those sales, I got about 2,000 subscribers at $45 a year. I broke even on the sale of the books, but the money from the subscriptions was almost pure gravy. In today’s money, subscriptions generated about $400,000. Then I made money on the renewals the next year. That also was gravy. I don’t remember what the renewal rate was. I’m sure it was not lower than 20%. I am guessing it was around 35%.
In 1980, I wrote a book off the top of my head in two weeks: Unconditional Surrender. I worked with a highly skilled typesetter, David Thorburn. He was mastering the new form of book typesetting, which was digital. This was rapidly replacing the old hot lead system, which had dominated for a century. Thoburn was an artist. The quality of his work was unmatched. I used his services for the next decade to publish dozens of books through my Institute for Christian Economics and also my profit-seeking publishing arm, Dominion Press. In 1989, he went out of the typesetting business. By then, his equipment was archaic, and he chose not to stay in the field.
At that point, I became a professional typesetter. I had an employee on my staff in 1989, Ruben Alvarado, who was very handy with the DOS-based word processing program, WordPerfect 5.1. He was on my payroll for a summer. In a couple of weeks, he designed a unique template. It would take a WordPerfect double-spaced manuscript and convert it into a very good-looking typeset product. I had to tinker with it to get things exactly right, but I can typeset a 200-page book in about two days. I didn’t do it all day long, so a book might take me a week to typeset. It was not up to the standards of the Thoburn book, but it looked pretty good. To see a book typeset by Thoburn, click here. To see my first excursion into typesetting, click here.
The reason that I typeset the books was simple: Thoburn had spoiled me. He had spoiled me rotten. I could not tolerate the typesetting provided by other typesetters I tried out. They just could not produce anything remotely resembling the quality of Thoburn’s products. The template that Alvarado designed gave me what I thought was about 90% of the Thoburn product for the kinds of books I published. But nobody else knew how to use the template. Alvarado had gone back to school, and he was no longer on my payroll.
The experience of being a typesetter was important for my understanding of the book publication trade. I knew how to write a book by 1990. I knew how to market books through my newsletters. I knew how to get them printed, although in those days, the cost per book was above what the cost per book is today, and I had to order 3,000 copies to get a good price. Print on demand has truly revolutionized book production. I can get a decent price by printing as few as 500 copies today. It is a terrific deal.
I always handed over accurate manuscripts to Thoburn. I was a stickler about accuracy. I would always make some corrections in the final version. Some typographical errors would get through. But my manuscripts were clean: therefore, my page proofs were clean. I expected my authors to hand in clean copy. Most of them were cooperative.
I had to hire a proofreader. I hired Nelda Banek. Proofreading is a gift. Most people cannot do it well. Errors seem to jump out at them. She was also good at grammar. Actually, she was better than I was, and I am pretty good at grammar. So, the books were clean.
This was always important to me. I believe that a publisher owes it to the readers to produce clean, accurate books. The quality of the books should be comparable to the quality of the content of the books, and the content should be way above average. In other words, form should match content.
Occasionally, I find a book that is typographically flawless. That does not happen often. Of all the books I have ever read, the flawless typesetting of James Billington’s Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (1980), best matches the extraordinary value of the book’s content. I once talked to the book’s editor, Midge Dechter. I asked her about the book. She told me that Billington was adding footnotes in obscure European languages right up until the day she sent the page proofs to the printer. She told him that she wouldn’t allow any more changes. If you have ever looked at the footnotes in that book, you will be as impressed as I am. I don’t think I have ever seen a footnote collection comparable to it in both breadth and depth.
A book publisher should have the same attitude towards readers as every business should have toward consumers. The average customer deserves a quality product that is better than his standards enable him to articulate. The look and feel of the book must be noticeably better than 95% of the competition. Only a tiny handful of topic specialists, would-be proofreaders, and obsessive-compulsive readers should be able to spot more than an occasional flaw in a book’s first edition. These flaws should be gone in the second edition.
The dominant typesetting program today is Adobe's InDesign. I am not going to learn it. My son-in-law does excellent typesetting at a reasonable price, and my time is limited. I am told that it is not that hard to learn, but my attitude is this: pay for somebody who has learned it, mastered it, and prices his services competitively.
Book publishing is a lot easier to get into today than it was in 1980. Every aspect of it is more efficient. Every aspect of it is less expensive. The marketing through Amazon is a revolution. The combination of e-books, PDFs, and print on demand is irresistible for authors. This is why so many books get published these days. Even better, it is why books stay in print.
For five centuries, when a publisher found that a book no longer sold, he dropped it from his catalog. The author had nothing to say about this. The overwhelming majority of books ever published were dropped after one edition. The books were forgotten. All of the dreams of the authors disappeared when their books ceased to be published. Today, an army of authors dreaming of immortality in print write and write and write. They hope that their books will survive. Predictably, the overwhelming majority of books are never read. They are never footnoted. But they are online, possibly forever, and a few people will find them. This is a great thing. It certainly is better than having no one find your book. That was the world prior to Amazon.
My final printed book was my economic commentary on the Book of numbers, Sanctions and Dominion. That was in 1997. After that, I published nothing except PDF books.
I may start publishing physical books through print on demand. I've been giving it considerable thought. But, so far, I have resisted the temptation.
CONCLUSION
I recommend that anyone who wants to get in the typesetting business do so. He should master InDesign. He should learn how to produce Kindle books for Amazon. He should sell his typesetting services to pastors, small businessmen, housewives, and anybody else who thinks that he has something to say, and that by getting it into print, he can advance his career.
I think this would be a nice side business for high school students or college students. It would be a nice side business for anybody who doesn't mind learning new programs, and who has at least a minimal sense of taste regarding either the printed page or the Kindle page.
I recommend that the typesetter charge one dollar for every correction that was not his mistake. This creates an incentive for authors to submit clean copy. Authors' mistakes should be paid for by authors, not typesetters.