Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school

[Debra Winegarten]

As both an author of middle grade biographies (focusing on Texas women) and a 
publisher, I can say that partnering with authors and publishers with grants 
would go a long way towards helping get these types of books out into the world.

It takes me at least a year of research and writing to produce a middle grade 
biography, and I can't do that full-time, because I still have to pay the rent 
and have a day job.

I'm speaking now from the author's perspective. It costs me between 
$6000-$12,000 to produce a quality biography in terms of my time and research 
costs.

Switching hats to the publishing end, I'm not sure that people understand all 
the back-end costs that go into book publishing. Quality editing and 
proofreading, book design, photo permissions, and the actual printing. Then 
there's the book distribution aspect, and publicity, publicist, and all the 
marketing that goes into it.


Editing and proofreading runs $2000-3000.


Book design depends on length and complexity, between $500-3000.


Photo permissions can run from nothing (if photo are in the public domain) to 
between $25-500 a photo, and you pay more for the cover photo.


Printing again depends on whether it's black and white or color, the number of 
pages, the type of paper, whether its hardback (librarians prefer this) or soft 
cover. E-books have the advantage of only costing to host the electrons 
somewhere, but the above costs still hold for e-books. A 125-page paperback, in 
a print run of 1000 copies is about $2.38 per book, print more, the cost goes 
down.


Book distribution, the distributor charges about $1 a book, plus postage. When 
a book is sold to Ingram (the wholesaler for bookstores), Follett (the 
wholesaler for Barnes & Nobles), or Amazon, the book is bought by them at 
between 40-55% discount. The margins are so bad for publishers on Amazon that a 
children's book I published this year (my first illustrated children's book), 
by the time I pay the author and illustrator's royalties, the distributor, 
postage, and figure in my print cost ($5.03 per book, I print 3000 copies and 
made it gorgeous and high quality because it's going to be a classic and 
deserves that kind of quality), I net .17 per book. That is not a typo.This 
doesn't take into account the money I paid the publicist nor the book designer. 
This is why you ought not buy on Amazon. 


I also didn't talk about author royalties, which range between 7.5% (university 
presses) to 10% to 15%, depending on the number of copies sold (the more copies 
sold, the author's royalties increase). The author often gets an advance 
against royalties and has to earn back that advance before they start 
collecting royalties.


A standard publicist will run $5000, that's usually 50 hours work @ $100/hour.


My point here is that there's a huge up-front investment for the publisher 
before a book even "hits" the streets, and conventional wisdom (and when has 
that ever been right) is that it takes a book two years to reach its maximum 
selling potential.

While it's true that in this day and age there are more avenues than ever to 
actually produce books, there is still the challenge of producing quality 
amazing books, which I'm committed to doing.

PJ Library and the Harold Grinspoon folks seem to be really committed to 
getting books out to kids for free. This is both a blessing and a curse. A 
blessing because many households get free books. A curse because PJ Library 
prints their own paperback edition, pays the publisher a "tiny" profit margin, 
and then by sending out so many books for free in the first year of a book's 
publication, that "undercuts" the books that would have been bought from the 
publisher at larger margins. 


However, PJ Library might be willing to subsidize a series and it's certainly 
worth a conversation with them, particularly since Heidi R. is now working for 
them and although the new kid on the block, she might be able to help frame the 
conversation in a way that they would be receptive to working on this.

I'd be delighted to continue this conversation with anyone who would like to 
explore it further.

 

Warmly,
Debra Winegarten, Publisher

Sociosights Press

www.sociosights.com

www.winegarten.com











-Original Message-
From: Devorah Bader 
To: Amy Turim 
Cc: Diane Romm ; hasafran 

Sent: Fri, Dec 8, 2017 4:19 pm
Subject: Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school



It would be great if they could be a part of the who is/was series. That is 
already a popular series with students and wouldn't have to be just for Judaica 
bio projects.



Devorah Bader
Library, Information and Media Specialist
Tarbut v'torah Community Day School


On Dec 8, 2017 10:15 AM, "Amy Turim"  wrote:


Thank you, Diane, for adding some support to my comments. (Yes, I, too, 
remember when teachers assigned biographies, and 

Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school

[Dina Tanners]

PJ library has a competition or scholarship for writers to go to israel to do 
research for books. Maybe we could suggest that they include more up-to/date 
biographies. 

Dina tanners 



Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 8, 2017, at 3:23 PM, Devorah Bader  wrote:
> 
> It would be great if they could be a part of the who is/was series. That is 
> already a popular series with students and wouldn't have to be just for 
> Judaica bio projects.
> 
> Devorah Bader
> Library, Information and Media Specialist
> Tarbut v'torah Community Day School
> 
> On Dec 8, 2017 10:15 AM, "Amy Turim"  wrote:
> Thank you, Diane, for adding some support to my comments. (Yes, I, too, 
> remember when teachers assigned biographies, and I think if we had GOOD ones 
> we would at least be able to enthusiastically recommend them.)
> 
> I also wondered about some kind of incentive from AJL… perhaps setting up an 
> AJL Grant for New Biography to support a writer(s)?  Or maybe your idea of 
> working with a publisher is more practical.
> 
>  
> 
> Other thoughts?
> 
>  
> 
> Amy
> 
>  
> 
> From: Diane Romm [mailto:dr...@yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 12:07 PM
> To: hasafran@lists.osu.edu
> Subject: Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school
> 
>  
> 
> I agree with Amy that the lack of bios about famous Israelis is very 
> troublesome. As for them not being checked out, once upon a time teachers 
> used to assign the reading of biographies as an assignment.
> 
>  
> 
> I do think the lack of information is something we as an organization should 
> think about trying to remedy.
> 
>  
> 
> Could we approach a Jewish publisher with the idea of creating such a series 
> and assure them that as librarians we would purchase them?
> 
>  
> 
> Alternately, would an organization like Avi Chai or a Board of Jewish 
> Education consider funding authors to produce such products?
> 
>  
> 
> Diane Romm
> 
> 
>   Virus-free. www.avast.com
> 
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Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school

[Devorah Bader]

It would be great if they could be a part of the who is/was series. That is
already a popular series with students and wouldn't have to be just for
Judaica bio projects.

Devorah Bader
Library, Information and Media Specialist
Tarbut v'torah Community Day School

On Dec 8, 2017 10:15 AM, "Amy Turim"  wrote:

Thank you, Diane, for adding some support to my comments. (Yes, I, too,
remember when teachers assigned biographies, and I think if we had GOOD
ones we would at least be able to enthusiastically recommend them.)

I also wondered about some kind of incentive from AJL… perhaps setting up
an AJL Grant for New Biography to support a writer(s)?  Or maybe your idea
of working with a publisher is more practical.



Other thoughts?



Amy



*From:* Diane Romm [mailto:dr...@yahoo.com]
*Sent:* Thursday, December 7, 2017 12:07 PM
*To:* hasafran@lists.osu.edu
*Subject:* Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school



I agree with Amy that the lack of bios about famous Israelis is very
troublesome. As for them not being checked out, once upon a time teachers
used to assign the reading of biographies as an assignment.



I do think the lack of information is something we as an organization
should think about trying to remedy.



Could we approach a Jewish publisher with the idea of creating such a
series and assure them that as librarians we would purchase them?



Alternately, would an organization like Avi Chai or a Board of Jewish
Education consider funding authors to produce such products?



Diane Romm


Virus-free.
www.avast.com

<#m_-5163963715503500908_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school

[Amy Turim]

Thank you, Diane, for adding some support to my comments. (Yes, I, too, 
remember when teachers assigned biographies, and I think if we had GOOD ones we 
would at least be able to enthusiastically recommend them.)

I also wondered about some kind of incentive from AJL… perhaps setting up an 
AJL Grant for New Biography to support a writer(s)?  Or maybe your idea of 
working with a publisher is more practical.



Other thoughts?



Amy



From: Diane Romm [mailto:dr...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 12:07 PM
To: hasafran@lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [ha-Safran] Israeli bios for elementary school



I agree with Amy that the lack of bios about famous Israelis is very 
troublesome. As for them not being checked out, once upon a time teachers used 
to assign the reading of biographies as an assignment.



I do think the lack of information is something we as an organization should 
think about trying to remedy.



Could we approach a Jewish publisher with the idea of creating such a series 
and assure them that as librarians we would purchase them?



Alternately, would an organization like Avi Chai or a Board of Jewish Education 
consider funding authors to produce such products?



Diane Romm



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