Re: [nafex] Re: NAFEX Handbook

[PermacultureNo1@aol.com]

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   

-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
eGroups eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/0/_/423498/_/977153065/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->