Tying up Loose Ends
Our planned trip to Michigan is fast arriving and I’m busy tying up loose ends.
Top on the priority list is going over some final details with a friend of ours who has agreed to keep an eye on the store and keep some of my pies warm in the oven. She spent part of this morning with me, will be spending Friday with me also, and part of Saturday if needed. If it weren’t for her willingness to lend a hand for a small fee, we wouldn’t be able to make this trip, so I am most appreciative.
Second is getting a final Price on Gail MacMillan’s soon-to-be released Caledonian Privateer. This is something that I thought I had worked out months ago, but with the economy being less than stable, which equals rising ship costs and a possible (read ‘likely’) increase in print costs, I felt the need to revisit the subject. I promised Gail to have a final figure to her before our leaving this weekend.
This isn’t to say that pricing on books is set in stone, and since I take the unpopular stance of not printing pricing with our barcodes, it is more easily changable for us than most publishers. But I don’t like jumping it around like a Mexican jumping bean.
Pricing, due to the nature of the book-selling industry, is an incredibly complex endeavor. Distributors expect a 55% discount, Retailers expect at least 35% to 55%, and direct individual sales expect a good savings also (of which we give a 45% discount when purchasing through the website). All this means that we have to take into consideration that whatever price we set on a book will only result in less than half of that actually making its way back to us in most instances. Out of that half, we have to deduct print costs, our ship costs, author royalties and our overhead. On the other hand, the customer is only looking at the final price on the book, so it is a balancing act of finding a profit margin and still keeping the books reasonably priced.
Other than these few things for the business (and still trying to get payment from an overdue invoice) our attention now is being taken up with mowing the grass, clearing out the fridge — trying to time the milk, egg, cheese and fresh veggie consumption coincide with our leaving — and keeping the laundry caught up so that we have clothes to pack on Saturday.
Saturday we’re leaving our home to head to my mothers with the dogs and cat, which will be spending the week with my brother. That should be interesting, as the new puppy has never been away from home for more than a few hours, and never away from us. I’m sure we are going to find one disgruntled puppy dog upon our return.
We’ll spend the night there and leave early Sunday morning.
Here’s hoping for nice sailing weather and a good trip.
Everyone have a good Tuesday!
