Hello everyone,

I am about to release a book about the construction of Diorama Clervaux.

Now i want to ask the thousands of modellers on this site who intend to buy this book:

Would you prefer a Soft or Hardcover?

What are you preferences for modeling books? Does it matter?
Is your decision to buy influenced by this?

My book will be DinA4, 80 pages. Hardcover will ad more class to it, but it will cost about one Euro more per book to print.
Do i pass the cost to the buyer or do i keep the sell price one Euro less and offer "only" Softcover?

Please give me some input, it's your chance to influence my decision.

Personnaly , as the book will probably be a one time event for me, i would love to do it the best i can, but if it doesn't matter to anyone else, i can save the costs.

Thanks for your opinion

Claude

Hello Claude,

I would say that one euro is worth it. Hardcover books look indeed better and are more resiliant to damage. To me softcover is only better when I read a thriller or a novel because the book lies better in your hand. If the quality of a hardcover is better, that depends on how the pages are fixed to the cover. If you have a hardcover book which only has been glued and no thread has been used you might loose the quality advantage of the hard cover.

Cheers,

Matthijs

Only one answer for me, hardcover.

Hi Claude,

Generally, I prefer hardcover but I am not all against softcover books.

In your case, if your book is ony 80 pages, I would go for soft, IMO.

Paul

Personally I prefer softcover books and I think the one euro will make a difference to some modelers. Are you going to sell it yourself or through distributors? My fear is that they would add a few more euros for the Hardcover version.

Until now, you weren't a great help guys LOL
21/2 for Hard and 11/2 for Soft

Seriously, thanks for your opinions.

Pat, i will sell the book myself. I will at most ad strictly the 1 Euro to the sell price but will probably take the added cost on my margin and not change the price at all to reflect the hard cover. I want the book to be sold and make people not regret the buy.
Of course, according to my actual calculations i need some 100 more sales to get this added costs back.

Hmmmm??

Thanks a lot

Claude

80 pages ... A4 size ... sounds like a softcover to me. Ive bought a lot of books/magazines over the last few years and they all come in a format similar to this with a soft cover. Doesn´t decrease the value for me.
I will be on the list for buying one, whatever you decide. Nice one Claude.

My personal purchasing prefence is driven by cost. For modeling related books I would buy soft cover over hard.
Having helped my father publish a book I understand the personal desire to provide a quality book and thus a hard cover.
Can you publish one hard for you then soft for purchase?
On face value I would pass on One Euro to the customer. To me that differential isnt big.
There are online facilities for self publishing that you could use to do your personal hard cover one then go main 'for profit' runs on softcover.

I'd prefer softcover Claude, not only because of the amount of pages or the cost, but I prefer what I refer to as 'working references' to be softcover. The quality of the paper and how it's printed is what I'd consider very important and would be where I'd rather spend a bit more money for. Like Frank, I'm on the list for purchasing one either way you go and looking forward to it. All the best

Thank you very much evryone,

this are all very good arguments and surely helps me to decide. Looks like Soft is slowly getting the overhand.
Scott, good idea, i used already one of this services for a photoalbum and it works great. One hardcover to put under my Christmas Tree!

Thanks all, i know that i can count on you!

Claude

Claude,

Coming into the conversation late, but what is the intent of the publication? Coffee table type book or modelling manual? If you're going for the high-gloss coffee table type book then definitely hard cover, but if you're going for the Shep Paine style modelling manual then perhaps soft cover is the route to go.

Which ever way you go, please put my name down for a pre-order

Rudi

Hi Rudi,

Well guys, 8 responses on the thread and three wants to buy the book! I think i need to print more!!

"Coffee table type book or modelling manual?" well, that's an interesting question i can probably not respond. It will probably be the modeller who decids what i makes out of it.

I will describe the build step by step and put some 500 pictures in the book. I will also insert the most specific tips i can give. So the modeller can take the whole book as a manual and look for inspiration on the way i build things or only look at he last 10 pages with the finished pictures and dream of the possibilties offered.
This all started as a request from a few modelers to write "something" about the build. It looks as i can't make anything small, so the little "something" turned into a book.

By the way, the book has been corrected by an english speaking guy. It's my text , but without the errors i do in this messages.

Claude

Count me in Claude, now you've got 4 buyers!

Can't wait to see the design of it, and, ooh, I would have go for a Hard-cover..

Cheers,
Alex.

Remember, unless Claude is handling all of the sales as well as the printing, a 1 Euro increase in printing cost will likely result a 3+ euro increase in retail price. To be honest, I've enver seena book where going hardcover didn't almost double the retail price.

If Claude is handling all the distribution, he can manage to pass on only the increased printing cost. If a third pary are distributing, you can count on a hardcover being significantly more than a softcover.

Paul

Paul,

Like i said, i'm doing everything, so i have full control about the selling price. It would greatly help if i would know how much of the book will be sold. If enough are sold i don't need to raise the price at all as the main goal is to sell the book at be at least profitable.

If not enough are sold , the added costs for hard cover will be entirely my burden.

An other problem is the actual high €/$ rate. If i stay reasonable in Euro it is still realtively high in Dollars.


Well, this is an very interesting experience! And i like it!

Claude

Looking at some recent examples of "similar" books is worth thinking about as well;
The Nordic edge books, Bill Chilstrom´s figure conversion book and the Euromodelismo diorama technique books ... have all been pretty popular. All had soft covers and Ive not seen any negative written because of the lack of hard covers.

What are the prices you are aiming at for your product? If the hardcover will only increase a low cost book by 1 Euro then go with that, if the book is going to be in the 20 to 30 Euro range every increase will cost you potential sales. You will also need to take into account the added weight of a hardcover when it comes to postage around the globe, which could greatly increase the cost to the end user. With that in mind I cannot give you an answer without knowing the expected costs of both options.

Franck,
Yes i did that also, you are right. Years ago, hardcover was more popular.

I have Porter's "ModelBuilding Masterclass, Windrow's "Terrain Modeling", Bill Horan's painting book, all in Hardcover, but to retake a former argument, they have at least ovber 100 pages.

Darren, good points. My first aim was 15-18 Euro range, some contacts i had pushed me a bit to go for the 19.90 range to align me with most other works (but still be in the lower wange of prices).

The postage thing is a good point to. It don't matters for Europe shipping , but for US customers, there is a 0.30 Cent increase per 100 gr above the 250 gr. standard price of 6.50 Euro. The increase for the Southern Hemisphere is 0.80 per 100 gr.

But, regarding postage, i already made a deal with a US-dealer (Monroe Perdue) to carry the book for you guys over the pond. I will certainly find one in Asia to.

So , for me, as i see it , Hardcover gives me as editor, except the better look and feel of the book, only more unsecurity regarding going profitable.

Thanks for the interesting discussion

Claude