New Publishing Company

[edwest2]

I read the book trade press, and paper books are doing so well that some in the trade are now saying that they misjudged the impact of the eBook and that their predictions of the future of eBooks, namely that they would become the largest part of the book market, were premature.

2007 The "...US Postal Service discontinued its outbound international surface mail ("sea mail") service," which meant my company lost most of its foreign customers.

2008 The planned global economic crisis. In the book trade, the category most hardest hit was Historical Non-Fiction.

Now new books, in all categories, are printed in the 3,000 to 5,000 copy range as opposed to the just previous 5,000 to 10,000 copy range.

Long before the internet, over 95% of the manuscripts I saw were bad [which is still true today]. It was like panning for gold. Then came cheap, 1 to 6 copy self-publishing. Again, a lot of bad books just because amateurs could pay a little and only store a little. Should they suddenly need 10 more copies, the print on demand order could be filled. Ebooks. According to a recent trade report, about 49% of self-published authors are making $500 or less a year on their eBook or paper format book. And it's very hard to know which are good or bad, much less how to find them. And when I look for highly specialized titles, the title had better reflect the contents. I am glad I stumbled across "Sonic Wind" but the hyperbole on the cover was a waste of ink.

Recently, the head of a videogame company said, "Kids don't read anymore. They play our games." That was not a fact, just twisting things around to suit the speaker/owner.

So, as can can be seen here, new publishing companies, just as in my niche, continue to appear. However, the other problem for historical non-fiction is an aging market and a lower replacement pool to draw from. Starting in the late 1960s, in the West, contraception was taking off. Fewer kids now means the hobby/research community is not as big as it was. Business-wise, a way must be found to bring more young people into the hobby.