I may be a writer of SFF novels now, but it wasn’t always so…
Way back in the ’60s (I know that some of you remember the ’60s), there was a big revival of traditional British and American folksongs. Even in high school I managed to wrangle all the Francis James Child, Cecil Sharp, and similar publications as special orders from the local bookstores, not to mention every recording I could locate.
I took all of this and my guitar to college and sought out kindred spirits to sing with. And I found them. For a few years, our singing parties continued, as many of us lingered in the same area with our first jobs and homes, as one does (before we all scattered).
To my amazement, not everyone could wing a harmony to sing, or remember words, or even melodies, and so (since I could) I wrote out our common repertoire as sheet music and handed out binders.
Fast forward a decade or two… No one in my immediate social environment was interested in this sort of activity. Meanwhile, music printing software limped past barely adequate to reasonably decent, so when some of my old cronies wanted a couple of copies of the old binder, I took the opportunity to reset all of it in good printed music, rather than my old scribbles.
And then I wondered… maybe I could print it for real, as a songbook, with an appendix of academic notes and a discography and other commentary, and make a real production out of it. I quickly discovered that no publisher was going to be interested but, hey, maybe I could just print it and sell copies informally. (Oh, sweet summer child…)
And thus Perkunas Press was born. But this was 1993… Amazon was not an option. I commissioned a print run of 1000 (most of which are still in my possession, sigh) and attempted to interest some of the music venders.
This went nowhere, my tech career got very busy, and I had other things to do. So, I abandoned the effort. You can see this reflected in the fact that only used copies are available on Amazon.
And, then, in 2013 (20 years later), self-publishing was becoming a reality and I revived Perkunas Press and started putting out novels.
And still I have close to 1000 songbooks sleeping in storage. So, what can I do?
This is a specialty publication problem, and I imagine that some of you have similar specialty publication issues.
My questions are about:
- How can I do fulfillment of modern orders from physical old stock currently in my possession? I assume this is solvable, one way or another, but don’t know exactly how. (Or I can treat this as a sunk cost (see 2. re: POD) or restrict it to a source for bulk orders.)
- I’ve professionally scanned the original print edition and created a PDF. It’s not horrible, but it’s not as clean as a fresh print-file suitable for Print-On-Demand. I’ve avoided getting too deep into this analysis until I make a decision about going forward (which is primarily a question of marketing) vs going on with my current writing and not spending time on this for limited results.
- The natural market for this book today is one that didn’t exist in 1993: Homeschooling.
It’s this marketing question that made me decide to write this particular article. Most of us are probably writing fiction or similar books, where a general vendor, such as Amazon, is just right. But I suspect that many of us may have non-fiction specialty items (I am reminded of the fad for coloring books). While they can be sold via Amazon et alia, there are typically specialized vendors where they should also (and maybe primarily) appear. I am daunted, however by the time I need to suss out the vagaries of a complex and evolving market (Homeschooling) that doesn’t seem to have any central organization for source materials. And all for a limited upside. (Yes, if it were wildly successful I could do a second volume of tunes, but that’s very unlikely, and I have other things to write, and limited time.)
What sorts of similar challenges have you faced? Do you have books in specialized categories that need this sort of special treatment? How do you handle the situation?
Mad Genius Club 
19 responses to “Unusual markets”
Dover Books does a lot of “old-style” books, and other unusual items. Your cover looks like just what i might find there. I’m not sure about the already printed things, though.
Kickstarter might be another option. You could use them as stretch goals.
I had to giggle… much of the art (not just the covers — every song has illustrations or decoration) is Dover-derived copyright-free stuff.
Fundamentally, what you need for the homeschooling market is a contact, who could tell you when there are curriculum fairs, and where to look online. I don’t have any anymore. However, some of the online academies probably have a music person that you could talk to. Kolbe and Seton come to mind but that’s my personal bent. There are others you might be more interested in. Saint John’s College in Annapolis does a lot of singing.
But beyond these things… What about hand selling at the places where you do barbershop quartette stuff?
Good suggestions about pursuing a homeschooling contact – thanks!
Alas, in all the musical entertainment I have ever been involved in, from Renaissance Street Singers in NYC thru Early Music thru Classical choruses thru German Saengerbunds thru Barbershop Quartets, never once has anyone in an audience responded to the “do you like this? want to try it yourself?” offer. And those who won’t sing don’t value songbooks. Wish it weren’t so, esp. since the book happens to include a few B’shop classics.
The 60s were a different time — relatively more people were motivated to try and “do it themselves” than to just sit and listen, as the fashion is today.
I also play Scandinavian Folk Dance music (fiddle), and in that closed context (like Contradance), there are both dancers and musicians. Those gatherings (the few there are, along with occasional dance camps) demonstrate a healthy combination of people attracted to a genre, some of whom want to learn how to do it, and that’s where new fiddlers come from, as well as those who are seduced by the recordings (as I was, initially). I’m a “name” in that context as a source of tunes and dance music practice.
Don’t forget about homeschooling support organizations, such as HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Assocation – I was a member when my daughter was homeschooling). Classical Conversations is more like Seton – they provide support for local homeschooling groups, curriculum, and such.
Some schools support homeschoolers. In my city, at least one of the private schools supports homeschoolers (by interfacing to the state, curriculum support, etc – it was well worth what we paid) as did the public school district (via a charter school for homeschoolers). Looking at websites or talking to these groups might help.
There are also publishers and online stores that support homeschooling.
Good luck!
I went back and looked at the title of this article… Unusual markets. I went to a sheep festival a couple of weeks ago and sold my fictional book about a shepherdess to quite a few people. BUT I had a lot of advertising help from the organizers who thought the whole idea of a book about sheep was entertaining.
For songbooks etc., there are some specialty publishers like Prometheus Press. Try them. I used them to find filk stuff, especially Leslie Fish.
https://www.prometheus-music.com/
Thanks. Prometheus seems to be good for recordings, little for books. But there are surely others like this.
I genuinely think my book is ideal for a homeschooling environment (music, traditional, multi-part (participatory), background, illustrations, etc.) but I have to find a way to distribute to that market.
Agreed, but filk is a subset of folk, and Eli Goldberg is thoroughly plugged in to both communities.
I can probably help with 1:
ship them to your Amazon store just like a drop-shipper would do.
Er, haven’t done that before. Where does one start?
fba.amazon.com
Thanks! That translates as https://sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon
yeah, that’s what came up in a search and was easier to type
i don’t know the exact details as i’ve only skimmed the surface, but a link to that should be forthcoming
TXRed as Mod: Draven, I have no idea why your comments keep getting spam-binned. They are now free.
no effing idea.
I would be interested in the book. But from the other side, how to get it.
I would be happy to help with that. 🙂 Please drop me a line at Karen.L.Myers@usa.net.