Quote Originally Posted by Breeze View Post
Yikes on demand publishing! An author takes a LONG time and puts in a LOT of effort to put together a book. How they choose to publish is entirely their business. As a potential user of the book, it is our choice to pay whatever the asking price - or not. It's really that simple, IMHO. I'll be buying one the moment they become available!
I do not in any way object to the asking price of most falconry books that are "in print". Generally they tend to be around $50 and most under $100. That is absolutely fair for a limited interest publication that requires a lot of effort to put together.

The cost to the author and the effort of fulfilling orders is where on-demand publishing shines. The author does not have to invest a single red cent into the
publishing and printing effort. The book is printed only when someone orders so the "publisher" is willing to keep titles in print virtually forever because they
have no real investment other than some storage space on a bunch of humongous disk drives somewhere.

If an author self publishes they end up buying 100's of books up front which is a cash outlay and requires storage space in a relatively climate controlled location.
Then they either sell them direct taking Paypal payments and going to the post office or they sell for wholesale prices to falconry equipment distributors who take a cut.

Contrast that with loading a PDF file to an on demand publisher and waiting for the royalty checks to show up.

I have a friend who publishes books for archery coaches. Clearly a small audience like falconry. He uses Amazon for his books making them widely available. He sets the price which sets his profit margin as well. His books will be available long after he himself is making the grass greener.

Some books that people like Harry McElroy sold for way under $50 are now going for $500 because it is not worth reprinting them. A lot of the
information is as useful as when it was first published but a new falconer can only get their hands on it if they have a friend who is willing to lend out
a now collectible and expensive book or if they have a big budget for falconry literature.

My real point is that if you are going to go through the tremendous effort of putting together a book why not make it available forever so your
relatives get the royalty checks even after you are gone?