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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

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Home » Publishing A-Z

Publishing A-Z

J Is for Just-in-Time

By Steve Laubeon October 30, 2023
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The economics of bookselling are complex and ever-changing. There is a method of inventory control called “Just-in-Time” (or JIT) that revolutionized both the retail and manufacturing industries.

When I began as a bookseller, there was no such thing as computerized inventory, at least not in the Christian bookstore business. We used a method called “Stack ’em high and watch ’em fly.” Because “If you stack ’em low, they won’t go.” The idea was to merchandise large amounts of inventory because there was no quick way to replenish your stock if you ran out.

We had sheets of paper with a list of “Never Out” titles in books and music. Weekly, we would physically count the remaining stock; and if our inventory on a title fell below a particular level, we would order more (via a phone call). This was our attempt to time our inventory to match the consumer demand. Titles not on the list would be reordered when that publisher’s sales rep visited. The rep would inventory the store, and together we would determine what titles to replenish and which ones to let disappear.

Technology Caused Disruption
Computerization changed everything. Using an algorithm, the computer determined the speed, or rate-of-sale for each title, and created order quantities to match the projected demand. This was called “Just-in-Time.” The inventory would arrive just in time to meet the customer wanting that book.

This caused serious disruption to the publisher. They too had to time their reprint orders to match the demand of their vendors (stores). If they printed too many, they tied up their cash in unsellable inventory (inventory that later ended up in bargain bins).

Over time, the size of print runs for publishers began to shrink as they tried to time their sales projections to inventory levels more efficiently. Slow-selling titles like commentaries and reference books quickly disappeared from store shelves because their rate of sale did not justify reordering. If you may sell one copy of a book per year, the store would question the need to keep the book on the shelf.

The pandemic of 2020 put the term “supply chain” into regular conversations. Since the entire world, not only bookstores, was using Just-in-Time inventory control, the disruption of the supply chain created massive problems everywhere. In the book world, there was a huge paper shortage in late 2020 that squeezed print runs for new books.

Print-on-Demand and Ebooks
In the mid-90s to late 90s came the technology to print books on demand. Using a sophisticated machine, books could be printed one at a time (on demand) instead of in long pressruns. Unfortunately, the cost of printing each individual book was three or four times what it cost per book doing long pressruns. Plus the machines to do the work were very expensive. So, this technology was not quickly adopted, at least not for a couple of decades.

Then Amazon.com and their Kindle ebooks hit the market in 2008. Suddenly “Just-in-Time” was meaningless, at least for ebooks, because there was no physical inventory. The impact, however, was felt on the print side of the equation. Today, with ebooks accounting for 20-30% of all book sales, print inventories have shrunk accordingly.

Meanwhile, the efficiency of print-on-demand (POD) and the drop in price of the machines have seen a reduction in the per-book costs. This efficiency has allowed some publishers to do a longer pressrun on the initial printing and then shift subsequent demand to POD. The smartest publishers design their print books so that you cannot tell which are regular print runs and which are POD.

“Just-in-Time” can now mean that for some titles (not all) the publisher can print a single copy of that book for a customer and not have to carry a warehouse full. The book arrives “just in time.” This is why you see some titles online that say “available in two weeks” instead of “available now.” A particular book may no longer be in stock, but your one copy can still be printed.

For industries other than books, you find the same inventory challenges. Big online retailers are building warehouses all over the United States to have distribution centers that can ship products (shirts, shoes, deodorant, books, anything they list) and have them at your door in 48 hours.

For those of you still reading this post you might ask, “So what? What does this have to do with me as an author?”

First, the meaning of the term “print run” changes. It used to be that selling your first print run was a measure of success. It usually suggested big numbers and healthy sales. Not anymore. That first print run is usually determined by the number of preorders received before the printing date of the book. So if there are 320 preorders, the publisher might print 2,000. Subsequent reprint orders are based on the speed or rate-of-sale on that title and the amount of reorders that vendors make. If a book really starts to take off, the publisher might order a new print run each day to have the inventory just-in-time for the demand. The phenomenon of a viral bestseller can put pressure on a publisher to get books into their sales channels to match the viral demand. But the danger is that the sensational interest may be fleeting and unsustainable.

Second, your book technically never goes out of print. If the publisher can print one copy using POD or sell an ebook without carrying any inventory, what incentive would a publisher have to declare the book no longer available? Your agent will negotiate that definition in your contract, but I’ll save that discussion for another day.

Third, this post should help you understand a little bit of the complexities of publishing decisions. Even with analytics and data analysis, it is still a guess as to how the consumer will respond to a particular title. Publishers don’t want to publish books that lose money; that would be foolish. Thus, when they are evaluating your proposal, they are thinking about these economics. You might think it is all about the beauty of your writing or the powerful message of your book; it is, in part. But ultimately it is an exercise in risk management. What ideas will connect with buyers who will vote with their pocketbooks? So help your future publisher with solid reasons why your idea or book is better than the dozen others they are evaluating in today’s meeting.

Since I publish the annual Christian Writers Market Guide, I have to “guess” how many copies to print each year. I want to have enough to fill the demand, but not so many that I have leftovers that are of no value when the new edition comes out the next year.

(A version of this blog was originally posted in late 2013.)

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Category: Book Business, Marketing, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, Economics, Publishing A-Z, Technology

P Is for Preemptive Offer

By Steve Laubeon October 16, 2023
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It can be exciting if more than one publisher is interested in your book. The publishers gather their calculators and prepare to make their offers on the book. Depending on how many publishers are involved in the bidding process (we’ve had as many as nine at once for a property), it can quickly become complicated. (I talked about the “auction” in a previous post.) Some will bid solely …

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Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, Preemptive Offer, Publishing A-Z

A Is for Auction

By Steve Laubeon October 9, 2023
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When an agent has a client who is wanting to shop for the best deal available from publishers or if there is a particular project that is bound to garner significant interest from more than one publisher, the agent can hold what it called an auction. Or if a project attracts multiple offers from different publishers a “bidding war” can ensue. The word “auction” is tossed …

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Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: auction, Publishing A-Z, publishing auction

I Is for ISBN

By Steve Laubeon September 25, 2023
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978-0-7852-6400-2 978-1-62184-113-5 978-1-4245-6490-3 No, these are not the plays being called by a quarterback during a football game. They are the ISBN numbers on the back of three different books by three different authors. Kudos to the first person to identify the three titles in the comments below. Origins In the mid-60s, a major British bookstore chain (W.H. Smith) moved toward a …

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Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Book Business, ISBN, Publishing A-Z

L Is for Libel

By Steve Laubeon May 9, 2022
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by Steve Laube

 To libel someone is to injure a person’s reputation via the written word (slander is for the spoken word). I wrote recently about Indemnification but only touched on this topic. Let’s try to unpack it a little further today.

First, be aware that the laws that define defamation vary from state to state, however there are some commonly accepted guidelines. Anyone can claim …

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Category: Book Business, Contracts, Publishing A-ZTag: Libel, Publishing A-Z

B Is for Buy Back

By Steve Laubeon February 28, 2022
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by Steve Laube

Many authors are also speakers and as such usually have a book table in the back of the room where the audience can purchase a copy of their book during an event. This can be a very valuable source of income for the author if they have negotiated a “buy back” price (also known as the author’s discount) at the time of signing their book contract.

Check Your Contract …

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Category: Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: Author Buy Back, Author Purchases, Author Sales Tax, Book Business, Publishing A-Z

C Is for Noncompete

By Steve Laubeon February 7, 2022
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by Steve Laube

Both Tamela and Karen wanted “C” to stand for coffee or chocolate since both seen to be must-haves for any writer. Instead I’m going to fudge a little (pun intended) and write about the “non-Compete” clause in your contract. This clause has become the latest playground for negotiations.

Here is a simple version of a non-compete clause:

The Author will not publish or …

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Category: Contracts, Publishing A-ZTag: book contracts, non-compete, Publishing A-Z

A Is for Advance

By Steve Laubeon November 22, 2021
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by Steve Laube

Whenever I lecture about money the room becomes unusually quiet. Instead of a common restlessness from listeners there is a thrumming impatience to reveal the punch line. The punch line that declares every writer will be rich.

Now that I have our attention let’s turn to the topic of the day. The Advance. This is defined as the money a publisher pays to the author in …

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Category: Agency, Book Business, Publishing A-ZTag: advances, Book Business, Publishing A-Z

Happy Birthday Winnie-the-Pooh!

By Steve Laubeon October 14, 2012
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by Steve Laube

On this day in 1926 the book Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne was published by Methuen in London. Our household has celebrated this day each year with my wife baking Winnie the Pooh shaped cookies. (Yes, it is a scary thing to be a man in a house of Winnie the Pooh celebrations...)

Some say the real birthday is the day Christopher Robin Milne was given his stuffed bear (August …

Read moreHappy Birthday Winnie-the-Pooh!
Category: Book Business, News You Can Use, Steve, The Publishing LifeTag: Birthday, Publishing A-Z, Winnie-the-Pooh

Inside a Publishing Company

By Steve Laubeon June 18, 2012
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by Steve Laube

I just returned from three days at the Write! Canada writers conference outside Toronto. During my time there I presented a six session lecture series on the Complete Publishing Process: From Idea to Print.

When the entire process is compressed into a short series like that it becomes evident how many people are involved in the publishing of a book at any given publishing …

Read moreInside a Publishing Company
Category: Book Business, Defense of Traditional Publishing, Marketing, Steve, The Publishing LifeTag: publishing, Publishing A-Z
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