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Old July 9th, 2007, 03:15 PM
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alanross alanross is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Outer Banks - U.S.A. Nags Head, NC
Posts: 1,913
I've been wrestling with the songbook issue for the past 12 years. I've only lost two in all that time, but mostly it's because they are large and hard to hide as you exit. We put both listings in one book (title and artist) for ease of use. Our books currently weigh about 5 pounds each and are in two inch binders.

We've been using the three ring binders and every page is in a sheet protector, but this year, as we began working on the new edition, we realized that the cost of production would be about $50/book. We already have binders, but the cost of paper and ink + cost of sheet protectors + time to stuff each page into the sheet protectors + pizzas and sodas to feed the friends and employees that have come over to help stuff the books = $50/book. We have more than one system and use 8 books per system. Even making books for just two systems would cost $800!!! I had to find an alternative.

Granted, we've all come to expect that producing the songbooks is just part of the cost of doing business. But I got to thinking that there has to be a way to minimize this cost.

I found www.lulu.com which is an on-line publishing company. I can produce each of my songbooks in paperback form (kinda like a phone book) for about $10/book. This is a tremendous savings of $40/book!

So, on Lulu.com, I uploaded my work files, completed the process and ordered a prototype book. When it arrived, I was extremely pleased with the quality and professionalism of the finished product. I immediately created a second book with Lulu that is available for sale on-line.

The first book is mine only. I am the only one who can buy it from the manufacturer (Lulu) and it has a box on the front cover that says,
"Property of Endeavors II, Inc.
FOR SHOW USE ONLY - NOT FOR SALE
To purchase a new copy of this book,
See your show host"

I also set the color of the text on the spine to Red.
These are the books I bought to place out at the shows for the audience to use.

The second book I have on-line is exactly like the first, but the cover doesn't have the "Property of" box and the color of the text on the spine is in black. These are available for anyone to purchase for $17.99 or they can be downloaded for $7.99

The reason for the two books is so that when people bring in a book they purchased, we can differentiate between that and the books available to use at the shows.

Now this is a brand new thing we've done and I am waiting for my first shipment of books for the shows to arrive. I've also ordered a number of the books for sale, so I can sell them at the shows. I showed the prototype book to several of our "regulars" at my show this past Saturday night and they've wholeheartedly supported it. Many have expressed interest in buying them. As of this morning, I got notification that two books have already been sold on-line.

People want their own copy so they can go through the list at their leisure, highlight the songs they want and use it as reference. To this end, I expect more sales as word spreads.

We put our books out on one table each night for the show and people come up and take them during the show. Since I use Hoster to run my shows, the timer on the screen tells me when I cannot take any more requests and I go around and collect all the books at that time. Then I make the announcement that I can't take anymore requests and since I already have the books back, it's less likely one will walk out the door.

I will put up a sign on the table where I place the books letting people know that these are for the show only, but they can buy one as a keepsake or for reference from the show host.

There are intrinsic difficulties in this format to the books, like damage from spilt drinks, placing the books on tables with water rings, theft, etc. But the cost savings is significant enough to warrant giving it a try. Rather than $800 for 16 books, it only costs me $160. The $640 difference will go to replacing stolen or damaged books throughout the year. Plus the revenue I make from the royalties of selling books on-line will also help cover the cost of replacements.

Again, this is untested water I'm stepping into, but if it seems like an interesting idea to you, go to www.lulu.com and type "Alan Ross" into the search field. My songbook will show up in the listing and you can click on it to see a preview of the book. The preview shows the first few pages of the book and then the first few pages of the artist section and the title section.

We are also offering the download option for people to use as reference if they don't need a hard copy.

Like I said, I've already sold two and I have at least six more verbal orders placed by some of the regulars. I make $6.57 in royalties for each book purchased, so I'm already looking at $52.56 in revenue just for those 8 books. That's practically a third of the cost to buy the books for the shows. That means that even if I lose five of the 16 show books I'll have out for use, I'm still ahead of the game. Sell enough books, and my cost of book production could drop to almost nothing.

Since we work in a tourist area, where people love to buy t-shirts and stupid keepsake stuff, conservatively, I expect 10% of our sales will be to people who just want a souvenier of their trip.

If you go check out my book, please let me know what you think.

- Alan
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Alan Ross

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