Now, I know that most of you aren't actually bookmakers. Except for Dennis, who's taking bets in his spare bedroom. (Oops, did I type that outloud?)
So...I realize that on occasion, I post things--like the hard-hyphens--that can be confusing. Or, unimportant to you. Therefore, I'm not sure that what follows--an accurate recitation of a phone call I had today--will really amuse or astound or boggle you. If not, Mea Culpa.
First, I have to preface this by saying that the person who called tried to Chat me, twice, using our website capability, and each time, when I responded, she'd start up a new chat. My original thoughts here weren't charitable, although it seems to be some glitch with Safari (big surprise).
PHONE RINGS.
ME: Howdy, I'm so-and-so, yadda, how can I help you?
VOICE: I'm so-and-so, and I do print book and ebook production. I have a client, who had a bunch of books in print. He also had them put into eBook format (curse you, Bookbaby), but now, he wants to use Createspace, and put them back into paperback format.
ME: Sure, we can do that, depending on the layouts needed.
VOICE: Oh, they're all pretty simple.
ME: Great! So...since you do this yourself, is it overflow, or...?
VOICE: Well, it's like this. Because they were in print before, they want to be sure that anyone who discusses the book, or references it, etc., can always be sure that the part they're looking for, will be on the same page, whether it's the original print book, or the new one.
ME:
What?
VOICE: So, to make that happen, they want the new pages to be exactly the same as the old ones. Same text, same lines, everything, the same, but, in a new file.
ME:
VOICE: "...and I thought that maybe, I'm just slow. I was trying to do this, but, you know, with uploading at Createspace, and doing the cover design--so that's all in there, too (n.b. uploading at CS for anyone who's done it before is MAYBE 20 minutes. Not more. For the whole book. It's not like you're doing that one page at a time. Cover design? Who knows.)--it's taking me, like, a half-hour per page. (So, 400 pages?
200 hours. Yupperdoodle, do the math.) I told the clent how long it was taking, and he's all upset, saying that it will cost him $12,000.00 each to do these books."
ME: That's because your client is deluded and suffering from hallucinations. That's completely and totally nuts. In all the years I've been doing this, I'm pretty sure that nobody, ever, has
ever requested this. For this very reason--because it's a major-league timesuck, for NO REASON AT ALL. Is this like, the Encyclopedia Britannica, with millions of people referring to it?"
VOICE: Well, no, it's kind of a niche publication.
ME: Well, you're not slow. Your client is nuts. You tell him, if he wants to pay out $12K, for one book, sure,
I'm happy to take a shot at it. (Hey, I'm nuts, but for 40 books like that? Each? Hell, yes, I'd take those on for that type of dough. Even though I think it would be more like $9K/book.
A trifle!)
THIS: this very sort of crackpot thing
is the kind of shite you deal with all day long, nowadays, in self-publishing. It's not the other bookmaker's fault--this is the type of garbage you have to sort out. All day long. I have a client that's been having "issues" with Bowker, for TWO WEEKS. Today? Today, he told me that "they'd been sorting out a password, and so far, no luck." Hunh? You create a bloody account, which takes ONE MINUTE. You log in, you buy your ISBNs. Even if you're slow, it takes maybe 30 minutes, tops.
Nope, TWO WEEKS. I still have no idea what he's doing. Same guy emailed me today, asking me--for the THIRD TIME--what his page count is, because he has to give that to the cover designer. He has the PDF, mind you, for his interior. It's
done.
I gotta wonder what Mr. Same Page Numbers thinks happens with all the hundreds of thousands of non-fiction books that have 2nd editions? Thirds? Fifths? I mean, what next? He's going to ask that the Gutenberg be produced, exactly as it was, so that nobody gets lost discussing it?
Ya gotta wonder. I truly don't know if the field simply attracts oddballs, or whackos, or what. Or if it's simply that the advent of the Internet has exposed all of us to people we never--never--would have encountered, in our normal day-to-day lives. But now? Sure. Now, they don't just exist, they thrust themselves into our reality.
{SIGH}