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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 2, 2020 14:35:24 GMT
Yes Kevin, rich men do help their wives achieve their dreams. It is the phrase "to humour them". which would be considered racist. I assume you meant sexist?
Anyway, why is that sexist? Not only is it often the case, it can also work both ways. It's the "well, we/I can afford it. so what the hell? We/I can afford it if it goes to the wall. So stop hassling me about it" without doing the slightest bit of market research. As per my clothing shop example, that I see a lot of where I live. What's sexist about it? No one is saying it's bound to fail because they are stupid females. The Dumb Blond concept is sexist, as an example, because many are not, but in a way it is saying most females are dumb because many blonds are out of a bottle.
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Post by ronmiller on Apr 2, 2020 14:42:12 GMT
Nice to know that "many" blondes are not dumb.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 2, 2020 15:09:38 GMT
Nice to know that "many" blondes are not dumb. Sure is good to know, since I've been a blonde all my life and one of my daughters basically is as well. I'll have to let the spouse know that she [our daughter] isn't bound to fail simply because she's female and "many" blondes aren't dumb.
I might need to relay that particular gem from a distance.
***Update*** Yeah, not sure I can properly convey the spouse's response, though her opening with a scowl might be an indicator.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 2, 2020 15:54:34 GMT
400-500 books annually is nearly ten books a week. Vantage? That's not what you said. The total figure you gave was over 70 years and it was not even one a week. That's about one quarter of what a major traditional publisher such as Simon & Schuster will release each year. I cannot scroll back while replying, but did you not say 15,000 books over 70 years? I am sure you said something like that.
I did. But they did not publish a consistent 500 books a year from the year they started. They began with only a handful of titles.
Even if it's just an average, it's still not many as a whole.And what possible difference can it make what proportion of the population was publishing books? Err, a big difference. 215 books a year, means 215 people a year could afford their services. A tiny proportion of the population. I expect there's no statistics stating how many people wanted to publish a book via Vanity Publishing, but could not afford the vast outlay. (Then along came POD and Lulu.)
So what? Only a tiny portion of today's population is self-publishing via any means.
Far more people are self-publishing now, because it's possible to do it for free. Before the advent of POD and places like Lulu and KDP, it was very very costly, as you have shown. Your figure for the 1950s and 1970s is possibly true because they had to be literally typeset back then, a page at a time. A process that is only clawed back if it's something mass printed and mass bought.
The best estimate I could find for the number of self-published authors world-wide is between 3 and 5 million. Taking the higher number, that is only 0.07% of the total population of the earth.
I would suspect that the figure is very hard to find. Just Lulu say a million or two a year goes through their site. God knows what the figure is for via Amazon.You are only speculating now, No I am not. These things are very easy to look up, not to mention I have known and know some.
Fine. Look them up and cite the sources.
Why don't you do it? Not that I recall what I was supposed to be speculating about! and when you say that if a woman published a book it must have been paid for by her husband No, I said it can be the case, and I have seen it on documentaries, not that it's the norm.
Uh huh.
If you go back to the 1950s, which was where your example of Vantage's cost came from, few females from the class that could afford that sort of outlay, worked. It was considered to be 'common.' Even within the working classes wives did not work full time because they were too busy looking after their surviving children, or there was simply no work for them. It was the invention of things like the washing machine that 'freed' them, once they were cheap enough. I think the first one my parents had cost as much as a cheap car! It may seem sexist now, but that's how it was. in order to humor her I will wait to see what Larika and Maggie have to say about that little dollop of sexism. It's not sexism at all. It happens. (And not just in self publishing. ) I am sure the two of them would not pay the huge amounts often still asked for Vanity Publishing, and no doubt not even think about it when it cost as much as a house! but if they had rich husbands who offered to pay, would they turn it down? It's not sexism, it's often how marriages work. Share and share alike.
As I keep pointing out, DIY publishing can be just as expensive as vanity presses if one wants to do things properly.
No, you don't keep pointing it out, but you started off with two examples for way back that cost as much or more than a house! It costs nothing like that now, even using professionals. You have still not clarified what you class as rich.
It is only cheap if an author undertakes all of the work themselves,
Ron, it is substantially cheaper than your original example prices from Vantage.
and vanishingly few have the experience or ability to do equally well as an author, editor, copy editor, designer, illustrator and marketing expert.
Vanishing? How many could ever do all of those things?
So the comparison between the two is actually unfair
Hardly, I am saying that the original prices you gave from Vantage were excruciating. It did reduce as there was no need to typeset every page, and professionals began to use PCs to create on.
if you are matching someone who skips necessary expenses with someone who hires a company to undertake the jobs he hasn't the experience to do himself.
Err, I have not said that. What I have said is people are now able to use the likes of Lulu to fully DIY. But I never said they were all good books.
Creating a book of a quality equivalent to one produced by a commercial publisher would cost the DIY author at least $7000, according to the Reedsy survey I cited earlier. And that is just the cost of preparing the book for print.
No one is arguing about not employing services. We seem to be arguing about few, even today, can afford to, hence Lulu DIY. It's just yourself who have moved it to why self-publishers should pay to have it done. I am saying that not many can afford to, and they don't need to, because not all care if their book is even readable. And "rich" salesman, teachers and journalists? Er, yes. Do you not bother to look up what some earn? I can give you a few examples, even my wife, but I cannot be bothered.
I am sure you cannot be bothered. But, frankly, personal anecdotes don't weigh very much. The average salary for an American teacher is only $38,000.
I looked it up, and that's not an average.
Just for comparison's sake, the average annual income for a salaried American is $49,000.
I don't know what that proves. How many have a spare $10,000 knocking around to just spend on SP? Or even what $5,000 would be worth today! But it's actually almost twice $49,000, but it only needs one on $150,000 to make an average disproportionate. But here's an interesting statistic from 2017, "an estimated 39.7 million Americans lived in poverty according to the official measure." Besides, I thought that I made it clear that I had looked up the bios of several Vantage Press authors. I found a scant few who anyone would classify as being remotely "rich." Most were solid middle-class working people. No, you made it clear that you could not find any, just what their jobs are, which does not always show what available money they have on tap. Here's a personal example. A man I was in charge of earned the usual wage for what he was doing. But, his dad was a Lord who had big shares in Johnny Walker and was for a time Chairman of the Distillers Association. He insisted that his son should witness 'real life'. I bet you say it's an isolated example, but it's not. Perhaps you should buy a TV?Middle Class to most people is considered to be rich. MC earnings go from around $47,000 to $149,000. Upper Middle Class start at $149,000. Those are individual earnings, and there could be two in a house earning more or less the same.
If middle class is being rich, I sure have been missing out on something.
Comparatively so. (But I think I used a $ there instead of a £.) Let's say a married couple is on £80,000 a year each. That's £160,000. Are you suggesting that's not rich? An unemployed person or one on the National Minimum Wage would disagree.
But your point is, well, pointless. A lower middle class person is rich to a pauper, just as someone in the upper classes seems rich to me.
Then it's not pointless, it's disturbing you cannot see so many points. It shows that only those on high earnings, even today, can, or even want to! spend a few month's wage on self-publishing services. So you consider them rich too then? I keep asking you what you class as rich.Looking up a few more (not everyone has bios available), I found a physical education instructor, an historian, a widowed grandmother, a college instructor, another attorney, a missionary (we know how wealthy missionaries are), elementary school principal (another lucrative profession), lion tamer(!), another college lecturer and a musician. All to say nothing of an apparently endless supply of hopeful poets. And did you look up their backgrounds? Seems you were not able to. A person's job does not always indicate their actual disposable wealth. And from what decade? You gave the 1950s price as being today's equivalent of buying a rolls Royce or a house.Did I look up their backgrounds? Of course I did. Where did you think I got their job information from? Again you're just indulging in idle speculation. What are you suggesting? That these people were all lottery winners or heirs to the fortunes of rich uncles?
You looked at their bank accounts then? Some people actually work for the love of it, not because they need to. It's not speculation of any kind, it's just reality. HTF did such people, in such 'lowly' jobs, therefore afford the equivalent of the value of a house (your own figures from 1950s and 70s) just to self-publish a book? You really never answer that, so this entire discussion is > pointless
Or that all of the female authors depended on indulgent husbands?
All? Another reason this is pointless if you change what I say.
But to answer your final question, most of the Vantage Press authors I cited were from the last two decades---mostly from the 90s.
Not that you actually said that, not that it makes much difference, apart to the fact they did not pay $5,000 in the 1950s!
By the bye, the $5000 and up fee was apparently what was being charged in the final years of the company. Frankly, I suspect it was proportionally less in the past.
You gave $5,000 as the cost in the 1950's. I was not aghast at that figure for no reason. It's that which started off this entire 'discussion' in the first place. You never corrected that, until now. It makes this entire discussion > pointless. Even the last few paragraphs.
(PS I never mentioned Rolls Royces or houses. That was your comparison.)
Indeed, but you did say = the cost of a cheap car. Your comparison. I extrapolated that to what $5,000 could actually buy in the 1950s. And possibly in the 1970s also!
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 2, 2020 15:55:52 GMT
Nice to know that "many" blondes are not dumb.
Are you only here to nit-pick?
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 2, 2020 15:57:26 GMT
There's just as many dumb males, of any hair shade.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 2, 2020 16:14:15 GMT
There's just as many dumb males, of any hair shade. Very obviously.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 2, 2020 16:28:01 GMT
As for nitpicking, as my mother would have said: "When one has nits waiting be to picked, one should expect to have them picked no matter how uncomfortable it makes one feel. Otherwise the world would be soon overrun by twits with nits that weren't picked."
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Post by ronmiller on Apr 2, 2020 16:56:29 GMT
As for nitpicking, as my mother would have said: "When one has nits waiting be to picked, one should expect to have them picked no matter how uncomfortable it makes one feel. Otherwise the world would be soon overrun by twits with nits that weren't picked." Your mother was brilliant! Obviously not a blonde.
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Post by ronmiller on Apr 2, 2020 17:56:45 GMT
(Bold face is me, regular face is Kevin) I did. But they did not publish a consistent 500 books a year from the year they started. They began with only a handful of titles.Even if it's just an average, it's still not many as a whole. It’s consistent with many mainstream traditional publishers.Far more people are self-publishing now, because it's possible to do it for free. Before the advent of POD and places like Lulu and KDP, it was very very costly, as you have shown. Your figure for the 1950s and 1970s is possibly true because they had to be literally typeset back then, a page at a time. A process that is only clawed back if it's something mass printed and mass bought. It is only cheap under some circumstances, for instance, if one is doing an ebook there is very little expense. But, as you will surely have noticed since I mentioned it several times, I was comparing the cost of self-publishing a print book comparable in quality to that of a traditional publisher. In this case, the cost is not too much different than what some vanity presses charge. The best estimate I could find for the number of self-published authors world-wide is between 3 and 5 million. Taking the higher number, that is only 0.07% of the total population of the earth.
I would suspect that the figure is very hard to find. Just Lulu say a million or two a year goes through their site. God knows what the figure is for via Amazon. You are only speculating now,No I am not. These things are very easy to look up, not to mention I have known and know some. Fine. Look them up and cite the sources.Why don't you do it? Not that I recall what I was supposed to be speculating about! Nope. If you make a claim the burden of proof is on you.
As I keep pointing out, DIY publishing can be just as expensive as vanity presses if one wants to do things properly.
No, you don't keep pointing it out, but you started off with two examples for way back that cost as much or more than a house! It costs nothing like that now, even using professionals. You have still not clarified what you class as rich. Actually, I have pointed it out, along with a breakdown of the costs, at least twice.
It is only cheap if an author undertakes all of the work themselves
Ron, it is substantially cheaper than your original example prices from Vantage. If you will go back and look, the estimated average cost I found was about $7000...which did not include the costs of printing, marketing and advertising.
...and vanishingly few have the experience or ability to do equally well as an author, editor, copy editor, designer, illustrator and marketing expert.
Vanishing? [sic] How many could ever do all of those things? Very few. That’s exactly why in order to produce a book of a quality equal to that of a traditional publisher the self-published author must be willing and able to pay out of pocket for services such as editing, design, etc. Creating a book of a quality equivalent to one produced by a commercial publisher would cost the DIY author at least $7000, according to the Reedsy survey I cited earlier. And that is just the cost of preparing the book for print and does not include printing and binding costs, advertising, marketing, etc. And don't forget that in the end the vanity press author (or at least the Vantage Press author) received physical books. Evidence of this lies in the fact that one can find Vantage Press editions in used book stores.No one is arguing about not employing services. We seem to be arguing about few, even today, can afford to, hence Lulu DIY. It's just yourself who have moved it to why self-publishers should pay to have it done. I am saying that not many can afford to, and they don't need to, because not all care if their book is even readable. Then you may as well include someone who is happy with mimeographing their book on newsprint. However, I do not want to be comparing apples and cats. I am trying to make a comparison between the costs of a vanity press and the costs of self-publishing a book of similar quality to what either a vanity press or traditional publisher would produce. That is the only fair comparison. Comparing the costs of, say, producing an unedited ebook that is uploaded to Amazon directly from the author's computer to the costs of producing a properly edited and designed printed book is patently silly. And "rich" salesman, teachers and journalists?
Er, yes. Do you not bother to look up what some earn? I can give you a few examples, even my wife, but I cannot be bothered. I am sure you cannot be bothered. But, frankly, personal anecdotes don't weigh very much. The average salary for an American teacher is only $38,000.I looked it up, and that's not an average. My error was in listing the average salary for a beginning teacher. An experienced teacher can earn more. Here is one of my sources www.nea.org/home/2017-2018-average-starting-teacher-salary.html
Teacher's salaries---whether they are starting or experienced---in this country are substantially less than the national average household income. What are your sources? Besides, I thought that I made it clear that I had looked up the bios of several Vantage Press authors. I found a scant few who anyone would classify as being remotely "rich." Most were solid middle-class working people.No, you made it clear that you could not find any, just what their jobs are, which does not always show what available money they have on tap. Here's a personal example. A man I was in charge of earned the usual wage for what he was doing. But, his dad was a Lord who had big shares in Johnny Walker and was for a time Chairman of the Distillers Association. He insisted that his son should witness 'real life'. I bet you say it's an isolated example, but it's not. Perhaps you should buy a TV? Good grief. I didn’t need to know when they were born, what toothpaste they preferred or what they had for breakfast. What they did for a living was indicative of what their income might be, which was the only thing we were discussing. And I do not care what your personal experiences are with individual examples nor, for that matter, what you may have gleaned from that always-reliable source of information: the television. I took the trouble to find more than a dozen authors who published through a well-known vanity press---and some of these authors published numerous titles---along with what their day jobs were.
And did you look up their backgrounds? Seems you were not able to. A person's job does not always indicate their actual disposable wealth. And from what decade? You gave the 1950s price as being today's equivalent of buying a rolls Royce or a house. Did I look up their backgrounds? Of course I did. Where did you think I got their job information from? Again you're just indulging in idle speculation ("disposable wealth," indeed!). What are you suggesting? That these people were all lottery winners or heirs to the fortunes of rich uncles?
I have a book here on my shelves that was self-published in 1949 by someone who ran a campground and small restaurant near Mt. Palomar in California. I have another that was published by a Kentucky school teacher in 1922 (that even included 55 halftone photos). You have often mentioned in the past famous authors who self-published their early work. Few if any of them were "very rich" or even particularly well-to-do for that matter. Irma Rombauer invested her entire life's savings into self-publishing the first edition of Joy of Cooking, which goes to show exactly to what lengths an eager author will go in order to see their book in print.You looked at their bank accounts then? Some people actually work for the love of it, not because they need to. It's not speculation of any kind, it's just reality. HTF did such people, in such 'lowly' jobs, therefore afford the equivalent of the value of a house (your own figures from 1950s and 70s) just to self-publish a book? You really never answer that, so this entire discussion is > pointless Suggesting that the people I listed were only working at their jobs for the love of it and were in fact independently wealthy (which is the only point I can figure you are making) is pure speculation.
They could afford to self-publish because doing so was A. not as prohibitively expensive as you try to make out and B. they no doubt in some cases (such as Rombauer) made sacrifices if they needed to.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2020 18:30:45 GMT
Yes Kevin, rich men do help their wives achieve their dreams. It is the phrase "to humour them". which would be considered racist. I assume you meant sexist?
Anyway, why is that sexist? Not only is it often the case, it can also work both ways. It's the "well, we/I can afford it. so what the hell? We/I can afford it if it goes to the wall. So stop hassling me about it" without doing the slightest bit of market research. As per my clothing shop example, that I see a lot of where I live. What's sexist about it? No one is saying it's bound to fail because they are stupid females. The Dumb Blond concept is sexist, as an example, because many are not, but in a way it is saying most females are dumb because many blonds are out of a bottle.Yes Kevin I meant sexist.
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Post by ronmiller on Apr 2, 2020 18:37:15 GMT
Yes Kevin, rich men do help their wives achieve their dreams. It is the phrase "to humour them". which would be considered racist. I assume you meant sexist?
Anyway, why is that sexist? Not only is it often the case, it can also work both ways. It's the "well, we/I can afford it. so what the hell? We/I can afford it if it goes to the wall. So stop hassling me about it" without doing the slightest bit of market research. As per my clothing shop example, that I see a lot of where I live. What's sexist about it? No one is saying it's bound to fail because they are stupid females. The Dumb Blond concept is sexist, as an example, because many are not, but in a way it is saying most females are dumb because many blonds are out of a bottle.Yes Kevin I meant sexist. Another nit, picked.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 2, 2020 18:53:16 GMT
As for nitpicking, as my mother would have said: "When one has nits waiting be to picked, one should expect to have them picked no matter how uncomfortable it makes one feel. Otherwise the world would be soon overrun by twits with nits that weren't picked." Your mother was brilliant! Obviously not a blonde. No, she was a redhead with a temper to match.
Kind of why my younger daughter and I have red highlights, and the older girl is dark brown-auburn and the youngest is light brownish-red even though the spouse is a brunette.
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Post by ronmiller on Apr 2, 2020 19:13:46 GMT
Your mother was brilliant! Obviously not a blonde. No, she was a redhead with a temper to match.
Kind of why my younger daughter and I have red highlights, and the older girl is dark brown-auburn and the youngest is light brownish-red even though the spouse is a brunette.
Judith is a dark brunette while our daughter's hair is almost black (you have seen her as Velda). I had always thought that a friend of mine's girlfriend was brunette until she told me that she was actually a blonde and had been dying her hair brown for years. "Artificial intelligence," she said.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 2, 2020 19:36:36 GMT
No, she was a redhead with a temper to match.
Kind of why my younger daughter and I have red highlights, and the older girl is dark brown-auburn and the youngest is light brownish-red even though the spouse is a brunette.
Judith is a dark brunette while our daughter's hair is almost black (you have seen her as Velda). I had always thought that a friend of mine's girlfriend was brunette until she told me that she was actually a blonde and had been dying her hair brown for years. "Artificial intelligence," she said. My father was blonde as a child and raven-haired as an adult, and he didn't start "touching up" until his mid-50s. My oldest brother at 70 only has a light frost at the temples and dark brown hair.
The brother in the middle looks to be about 80 and just about ready for the mummy-linen wrap.
Your daughter is striking, evidence of good genetics.
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