No, no. There is no misspelling. OOP. It is an official classification. You have to ask yourself, Why would anyone do it?
OOP
Out of Print. Book lovers the world over just collectively cringed. Why would anyone ever take a book out of print? Are you shocked there is more than one reason?
The Dearly Departed
The most common reason to take a book out of print is no sales. If your book is not selling, some computer is slaving away to report all zeroes to you on your sales report every month. Even machines deserve job satisfaction. Before you send the funeral announcements, learn a bit more. OOP is not always an epitaph.
Plastic Surgery
The next most common reason to take a book OOP is because it is flawed or incomplete. Especially in terms of non-fiction, when facts are revealed after press, information can be criticized as incorrect. In fiction, occasionally beta readers and editors miss (or take the author’s word) support for events is flawed. Astute readers review accordingly, often without the sandwich method.
When corrections are necessary or information evolves, going out of print may not signal the end for the book.
Second Edition
If information needs to change, taking a book OOP is common to create demand for a second edition. The improved model should contain sufficient changes to keep buying the book again be beneficial without making the reader feel taken for buying the first edition.
During the time you are preparing the second edition, the unavailability of the original can draw interest if you are targeting those who were teetering on purchasing the original. The new book can make the reader feel satisfied with waiting by feeling like a superior product is available.
Bundle Up
OOP for single titles just before they are placed into a set is becoming only slightly more common. For example, you have a five book series. Book one is waffling at the edge of the no sales cliff. Prior to the release of the last book, taking the first out of print is an option, but a calculated risk.
In theory, those who have followed the series to its natural conclusion will buy the final book. Their reviews will stimulate new customers to pick up the series. Buying the books altogether is attractive… to some. There is a large split between those who will splurge for a set without having read most (or any) of the books and those who want to collect the set after having read them all.
The risk is one which leads more authors and publishers to debut sets when the last book reaches its sales decline.
Happy Anniversary!
Anniversary editions and sets are a tried and true method of sales stimulation. The ground work for preparing a book for a re-release includes taking the original out of print, cultivating new readers, rallying old readers and delivering a new edition worthy of collection.
Inclusions for this edition can be recognition for awards, foreword and/or afterword by a noted author or celebrity, “lost” or deleted text, additional resources and/or illustrations and a new cover. In the interest of stating the obvious, any errors in the original release should be corrected.
All You
Taking a book out of print as a gimmick to stimulate sales is not surefire without a continually evolving reader base. Giving a book a rest can offer you the opportunity to spend more time marketing a re-release, but it comes with the inherent risk of alienating readers who bought the first edition.
Retiring a book you consider a literary or sales failure is a matter of choice. Most authors prefer to leave all their titles available for at least trickle-in income.
Ultimately, you must decide if the benefits of going out of print exceed the risks.
Do you own a book which is now out of print? Have you bought a second edition of a book you previously read or a set?
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Candy
/ April 17, 2013I am kinda in love with the out of print treasure hunt in tiny little forgotten used book stores. However, I guess that is more like a hobby that an author kind of thing….
<3
Candy recently posted..The Boston Marathon
Red
/ April 17, 2013I have found some wonderful pieces in the OOP bins. It is hard to wrap my brain around the number of OOP books, especially in comparison to the active books. I never would have been in the ballpark with my guess. xxx <3
Bearman
/ April 17, 2013Or the info is now out of date. Dummies for Excel 1 just doesn’t sell like it used to
Bearman recently posted..Project Blue Collar – Daddy Issues Cartoon
Binky
/ April 17, 2013Probably sells better than the Lotus 1-2-3 Handbook.
Binky recently posted..Toothpaste Bath
Red
/ April 17, 2013Which is packaged with “The Secrets of Security with Windows 95”.
Red
/ April 17, 2013Now, they come free with the VHS collection.
Binky
/ April 17, 2013I heard, for copyright and legal reasons, some publishers were going to take a book to ODP instead of letting it go out of print, thus not allowing authors to take it to a different publisher.
Binky recently posted..Toothpaste Bath
Red
/ April 17, 2013That sounds like someone with sour grapes. OOP is not a contract breaker. If a publisher has a date-driven contract, ODP would not save the book anyway. If the contract is weak enough to say “for as long as the book is in print”, the house needed a better attorney. If the terms are “in production”, dropping an ebook preserves the contract, but so would offering it for free as a PDF. ODP is no different than any other digital format for longevity.
RLB
/ April 20, 2013“the unavailability of the original can draw interest if you are targeting those who were teetering on purchasing the original”
Anyone who cares to see what’s happened to the copies of my 2 Lulu books that were OOP between the time I “retired” them there and the recent Create Space Second Edition should look for the titles on a used book site called Bookfinder.com and compare what SOME crazy dealers are trying to do. This morning I discovered that my IN PRINT title Strong Coffee, just released, is already on the secondary market at more than twice my price. See my website for News on this.
Red
/ April 23, 2013This is common. When you choose expanded distribution, information on the book is available to anyone with a subscription. There is also no legal prohibition to offering for sale something you must purchase to fulfill the order. Drop shippers around the world have been doing it for ages.
RLB
/ April 23, 2013I did NOT and never will choose anything other than the simple listing at Amazon (and then, only to get reviews) and the Create Space option itself. If they somehow are using such a feature on my titles, it’s not because *I* chose or clicked it.
Drop shipping among secondhand booksellers was never “common” until Amazon became the world’s Most Trusted purveyor of everything from books to nails. In fact, that practice was considered to be unethical. No one would sell a book that was not in hand and described accurately directly to the customer; the business remained that way until several years into the internet. If a dealer saw a book for sale, and had a customer for it, HE/SHE ordered that book and examined it before passing it on, usually at a tiny markup because keeping customers happy was a priority.
Now, one can order a book from Amazon and never be sure what the condition will be, nor how many transactions it goes through before ending up on the doorstep, sometimes with huge markups.
Consumers apparently have much more money than the bit of time it might take to shop reliable dealers who still cling to the old paradigm, or they just don’t mind paying for crummy copies because if it’s usable at all, they use it, then return it and Amazon reimburses the cost out of the fees it exacts from Marketplace dealers who can’t seem to sell books any other way than to kowtow to Amazon’s ever changing rules and fees.
RLB
/ April 23, 2013PS. It’s the MARKUP that riles me. More than twice MY price, and the dealer doesn’t even have a copy yet. He influences potential buyers who think $29.95 is the real price, who will not bother to find out that they can get it from my site and pay less. They won’t buy his, overpriced, so he won’t buy a copy to sell; he kills my chance of selling to anyone who sees the inflated price, so I get nothing from his listing except a disgruntled would-have-been-reader.
RLB
/ April 23, 2013PPS – and what dealer is going to buy my books at the price I set? Somehow, I suspect Amazon is wholesaling them, and if I get any $ from it, I’d be surprised. They claim not, but we have no true way to check, unless we want to become such a dealer and order wholesale ourselves. CS authors don’t get a price break on bulk orders until hundreds of copies are involved. I’ve checked that, but always just shook my head at even thinking about piling another box or 6 in my house. So, no book signings for me. READINGS and ORDER taking, yes, someday. The whole point of POD was not to have an attic full of books. Sorory to take up so much space, but this is a sore point (well, several sore points) with me and the Big A.
Red
/ April 23, 2013From the POD standpoint, I would venture your best bet to still be networking with local bookstores (and their affiliates) to purchase direct at a discount comparable to what they get on the tear sheets. It helps me sell books. I collate orders to reach the price break for shipping.
Red
/ April 23, 2013I have always found them unethical. I hated my 3-hour old book, without a single printed copy made or sold was showing used for $3 less than my price. It was obvious it is not used. What kills me is the people on Amazon who are selling autographed copies of my book. I think that is rich.
Red
/ April 23, 2013If you chose to get a “free” ISBN, you did actually agree to the broadcasting of your books bibliographic information. The standard for CreateSpace is worldwide exclusivity. It enables them to sell the book to any dealer who has an account with them or the listing service they choose and the appropriate discount code. Because dealers are buying direct, they get a discount. This in not anomalous to CreateSpace/Amazon. It is the SOP for POD. It is why standard royalty for an expanded distribution book is 20% after cost, which, if the book is priced appropriately, equals around 7-15% of purchase price.
As to secondhand books, the majority of dealers on Amazon who are offering “secondhand books” are offering new books. They do not market them ethically from the position you are looking. They do not have the grounds (from any perspective) to be the primary dealer of the book because they are getting it from someone else, hence the term “secondhand” does not mean *they* owned it first or even that it is used. It means someone else has the book, and they are brokering the deal. The rise of this sort of Internet transaction originated with the auction sites, not Amazon. In the streets, these transactions are merely called acquisitions rather than secondhand sales. Secondhand sale refers to hand-to-hand transfers like garage, bookstore and flea market sales, as well as buyer-to-buyer transactions.
As to drop shipping, the most notorious and best loved of all drop shippers remains Sears & Roebuck. Every company who employs catalogs for sales fits into the drop shipping scheme.
RLB
/ April 23, 2013I never chose the “free” ISBN for any of my titles. I didn’t care that it was the only thing that allowed libraries and bookstores to order, since I knew it represented only a catalog listing, and librarians weren’t likely to even look at a catalog, while bookstores were already dying like the proverbial flies.
You are correct about the book brokers vs the secondhand dealers. But customers who haven’t been in or close to anyone in the business don’t know the difference. They just believe it when Amazon says they’ll get the best deals and free shipping, and that’s all that matters. Even when it isn’t necessarily so.
Red
/ April 23, 2013Aye, but that is true of all marketplaces… after all, why would they lie? 🙄
Red
/ April 23, 2013And if you did not, the sellers with your information are the ones who are scraping the “newly listed” list. They can pull everything in the listing by bot with the exception of the excerpt (unless the bots have finally figured out the java driving the lightbox). As long as they do not steal the book (meaning they buy it from whomever has it) and do not claim rights to the book, it is legal to sell any non-controlled merchandise. I bet if you check the prices, if you drop shipping from your price is it less than their price + shipping. That is their gross receipt. They are ordering with a prime account (no shipping) and drop shipping it wherever. Amazon does not care because they are getting fees twice: 1. From the seller when the buyer purchases. 2. From the seller when the seller purchases directly from Amazon (plus the membership).
RLB
/ April 24, 2013This is precisely why I rail against Amazon and other unscrupulous 3rd party dealers. The defenders of Amazon who are also writers apparently are thrilled to see their work (usually given away on free days) rise in the Amazon ranking system, never realizing what this does to their reader base. Maybe they’re right…IF word of mouth really is the only thing that works in this environment. The only way booksellers like Chris and me to compete is to become equally unethical and do as the
RomansAmazonians do. But we’ll never stoop that low.My goal in writing was to get the stories out of my head so others could read them. Even if it takes a very long time to reach them through such perilous venues.
Red
/ April 24, 2013Considering all of the networking sites are being snapped up by Amazon, Indie publishing houses and the Big Six will be the only alternative to Amazon… again.
C. Brown
/ April 17, 2013How do I know so little? 🙂 Every night when I read “you” I learn something new.
C. Brown recently posted..You Might Not Know It America….But I Love You
Red
/ April 17, 2013Bwahaha! Welcome to the world of excruciating minutia, Colleen! <3 xxx
C. Brown
/ April 18, 2013Don’t tell me that! Excruciating or not, I believe in your brilliance. 😉
C. Brown recently posted..You Might Not Know It America….But I Love You
Red
/ April 23, 2013You are too sweet <3
tess kann
/ April 17, 2013Many years ago, I read a book titled, China, the Sleeping Giant. I wanted to read it again but it was OOP. On a lark, I went on an internet search and a small book reseller had a copy. What a find!
Yes, I have purchased second editions because my first reading was a borrowed book. If I liked it, I bought my own copy in a second-hand store–a later edition.
tess kann recently posted..Flash in the Pan – Sommelier
Red
/ April 17, 2013I have a number of books which are currently OOP. I have not intentionally bought an OOP in longer than I care to calculate. There are a number of books I have in two and a few in three editions. xxx
El Guapo
/ April 17, 2013A lot of pre 70s Civil War is out of print. Some are fascinating, but an awful lot (especially pre 60s) is awful, and wouldn’t have passed a modern standard to begin with.
El Guapo recently posted..Birthday Drinks: The NutMegan Highland
Red
/ April 17, 2013History which goes OOP tends to stay there. Quality is an issue, and public acceptance is bigger. Much the theory of the victor writing the history. That dates back to before the printing press, though.
Vashti Quiroz-Vega
/ April 18, 2013I don’t like OOP! 🙁
Vashti Quiroz-Vega recently posted..He thought of days he had handed over to a bottle.
Red
/ April 23, 2013Not many people like when books go out of print. Me, too…
Valentine Logar
/ April 18, 2013Stephen King took one of his books out of print, I can’t even remember the name of it but teenagers were using it as a recipe for violence against themselves and others. Good reason.
I have found a few treasures in the OOP bins in my local reseller. I understand the reasoning especially in IT.
Valentine Logar recently posted..GUTTER – 33 word flash-fiction Gallery
Red
/ April 23, 2013Non-fiction goes OOP far faster than fiction… some not soon enough.
Prenin
/ April 18, 2013Can’t say I have done this with a book, but I have with the complete set of the ‘Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy CD boxed set! 🙂
God Bless!
Prenin.
Prenin recently posted..Wednesday – Maggie Thatchers funeral.
Red
/ April 23, 2013That should be fun…
Gray Dawster
/ April 18, 2013A fine posting
my great friend 🙂 🙂 xxx
Red
/ April 23, 2013Glad you stopped by. 🙂