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nafex - Re: [nafex] Re: NAFEX Handbook

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  • From: PermacultureNo1@aol.com
  • To: nafex@egroups.com
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Re: NAFEX Handbook
  • Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 10:24:10 EST


In a message dated 12/17/00 1:18:08 PM, prcenter@webtv.net writes:

<< I do not think $1.00 a copy is too much to ask. Mr Fishman however seems
quite personable on the phone and I assume open to negotiation. giving an
estimated $5 for printing expenses... a $15.00 price would give NAFEX $9.00
per copy. If as before 7,500 copies were printed this would amount to about
$67 thousand dollars for NAFEX $7 thousand for the Author and a "budget" of
$37 thousand to recoup production, printing and distribution expenses. >>

I think it would be good to have a revised handbook, and othewise I have no
opinion on the positions other than that some of the parties may lack an
understanding of what is considered reasonable in publishing.

Typical costs of a publication are that the printing cost is multiplied by 10
to get to the retail cost. The author gets another 10 percent, the publisher
gets 20 percent, the distributor gets 20 percent, and the retailer gets 40
percent. Short run publications can't function this way because the cost
would be out of sight and no one would get anything except the publisher, who
gets a big printing bill plus overhead and promotion costs.

However one can see that there is lots of wiggle room, here, even if retail
is only 5 times the cost of printing. The author HAS to get a bigger
percentage because s/he has done a certain amount of work, regardless of how
many times it has been repicated. If I were making the arrangements, I would
say 20 percent would be fair given agreement on the retail cost. AND given
that we are talking about a mostly volunteer organization, I would suggest
that in lieu of advance, the author could be given an agreed upon number of
books to sell privately that are credited against royalty on the basis of
printing cost only. So if the author wants to hustle, those books can bring
in 80 percent of retail. I am NOT saying that this should be or even might
be an arrangement for the Handbook. My purpose is ONLY to illustrate the
considrations and the areas where fair arrangements may be negotiated.

The board has a clear option, as does the author. Either or both can
completely rewrite the handbook so that it no longer resembles the original
in any way except information. Then copyright does not apply--information is
not subject to copyright, only the work that has gone into organizing and
presenting it. I would recommend to any author, particularly one working
with volunteer organizations, that if the work is not 100 percent gift, s/he
should retain copyright. Copyright is really copyrights, and one can
transfer portions as one sees fit, such as first publication rights, etc.,
without giving away the farm. We assume, in our journal, that all authors
have given us ONLY one time publication rights, and obtain permission before
we reprint material in any other form, including my own courses.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence
courses via email. Join our current online course, in progress. Copyright,
2000, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA Internships.
BarkingFrogsPC@aol.com
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames.html
or
http://www.permaculture.net/~EPTA/Hemenway.htm
We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html

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