Selling Prospectuses

I see Copperhead Press will be selling a prospectus. Included below in quotes is text from the press's website.

Is this a first? I can't remember a press selling a prospectus. Not a complaint, by the way - I likely will order one for myself.

"The prospectus for 'The Attack on the Mill' is not yet available to order. Watch your inbox for the announcement in the coming weeks.

"This prospectus announces Copperhead Press's thirteenth publication: a fine press letterpress edition of Émile Zola's The Attack on the Mill, limited to fifty copies.

"The prospectus is itself a carefully made object, limited to 110 copies. It has been printed letterpress on the same Crane's Lettra cotton paper that will be used in the edition and includes a tipped-in reproduction of a plate from Francisco de Goya's Disasters of War — the same series of images that will appear throughout the finished book. Also enclosed is a sample card bearing swatches of the burgundy Nappa lambskin and rainwater gray Italian bookcloth that will cover each copy of the edition.

"The prospectus describes the edition in full, including its design, materials, and the thinking behind the pairing of Zola's text with Goya's prints."

>1 Shotcaller: The Rampant Lions Press issued a priced prospectus (£12) for their edition of Eliot's Four Quartets, which sum was deductible from any future purchase of the book itself.

>2 duncjl: Ah, great example! Thank you.

Can’t recall it before. Collected some beautiful ones too.

>1 Shotcaller: I can think of a small handful of instances where prospectuses are sold. Some, such the already-mentioned RLP ‘Four Quartets’ were sold with the cost being deducted from the cost of the book if purchased. I think at least two of the Corvus Works prospectuses have been sold on the same basis. Another sold prospectus that comes to mind is the marvellous piece that Andrew Steeves produced for his Gaspereau Press edition of ‘Pied Beauty’. All of these prospectuses share in common that they are considerable in content and well worth the money. I’m actually more than happy to pay for prospectuses as they are often quite wonderful items in their own right. In this day and age, they aren’t the necessity (for want of a better word) that they were in the pre-digital heyday of fine press, so presses increasingly forego printing them. I think the increasingly tight margins on jobs make it less viable to add a free prospectus into the mix and I expect a future of either no prospectuses or prospectuses for sale will become the norm.

>5 ChestnutPress: Thanks for this insight. And no criticism was intended; like I said, I’ll probably order one myself.

There's no obvious online source for details, but look out for Bird & Bull Conservatory (2008). Basically a bunch of prospectii in a book. I'm too lazy to pull my copy off whatever shelf it's on but Oak Knoll has a copy of the prospectus (which, according to the text in the image below, doesn't exist). It's a bit like a scrap book, can't be helped with all the samples attached to shims, but it's a fun thing to leaf through (ignore that pun).

>6 Shotcaller: I didn’t take it as a criticism at all — I was just offering my personal thoughts on being happy to pay for prospectuses, especially when the alternative may be no prospectus at all. Best wishes

I can think of a number of presses doing themselves a disservice by not printing prospectuses for their most ambitious works (for a separate fee or absorbed into the price of the book). I almost see it as a marker of ambition. To go to the effort of producing a prospectus, it's making a very firm statement to me "my book is going to be worth it". Fine press should be a culture of print and should do the difficult things.

>9 LT79-1: I get this, but it seems not so much a matter of effort or ‘doing the difficult things’, but rather a matter of financial concern. With the prices of everything relating to the making of fine press constantly rising, prospectuses have become a cost that publishers can understandably do without if they want to keep the prices of their editions down (postage costs alone are more than offputting!). The answer can only realistically be selling prospectuses, but I think many buyers will baulk at this idea. It would be interesting to get a consensus of opinion from forum members as to whether they would pay.

>10 ChestnutPress: I'd only say this for very ambitious works by ambitious presses not necessarily for every book. Books which will take a long time to produce. Salvage Press did it for Carbon, SJPP are doing it for Paradise Lost. I mean this kind of book. I think they absorbed it in the price of the book but if sold separately I'm sure it would still sell out.

You have this rich heritage of really great historical presses printing prospectuses and a press wanting to be part of that legacy should really think about it for their larger works. I think you'd be surprised how well they would sell. I don't see online marketing as just replacing these other aspects of the print culture around a book.

One final point. A new collector might not be able to afford a Carbon or a SJPP book. But they could afford a prospectus and enjoy a piece of a book which they will never get to own.

>10 ChestnutPress: think I would be happy to pay for a prospectus.

With something like the Copperhead Press prospectus, they could be made even more attractive to those people who collect prospectuses in their own right by hand-numbering and/or signing them. That makes it feel less as though you are paying for marketing material and more as though you are buying a collectable item.

For a print run of 110 copies, I would hope that wouldn't prove too onerous.

To encourage those who intend to buy the book as well, the prospectus could include a discount code equal its purchase price, redeemable against the cost of the book. I appreciate that this would add a degree of administrative complexity, but it feels as though it ought to be manageable.

>12 TheTotalLibrarian: excellent points but just to add to this, having something unique to the prospectus like creative thinking behind the book or contextual or background information to give it a unique feel in its own right would be very attractive too.

I don't have anything against prospectuses but to offer a counterpoint:
If the printer/publisher/designer thinks it would be fun or worth their while to make a prospectus, great. Have at it; it's your show!
But if not, their time and energy and creative juices would be better spent on some unrelated, standalone piece of ephemera or pamphlet. A poem, a quote or fun fact with an image, whatever. More fun/interesting for them and for others who just admire printing, paper, type, design, etc.

>7 H-M: This is one of my favorite books, on the topic of Henry Morris he seemed somewhat mixed on prospectuses - IIRC a couple times he notes that only does them as a courtesy for the standing order list after finding that his more elaborate ones didn't convert.

I feel somewhat the same, as a collector I don't think they influence my purchasing a significant anoint, but I really like having for the books that I buy. I usually only get sent them by presses with a copy of the book or with ones that I have a standing order with anyways.

I think prospectuses remain very useful.

We tend to see prospectuses for editions like Jamie's Carbon and James' 1984 indeed to mark an occasion and say "This is a biggun!" but also because these are high-cost low-limitation editions. If a physical prospectus helps to sell another copy or two, it's well worth it.

In this conversation I get the sense that prospectuses are being viewed as an old-school relic, but not as effective marketing material. On the contrary, I think they're excellent marketing materials even today. There are many collectors out there who are not following the ins and outs of fine presswork by email or in the online communities. Our emails to these collectors go into the same Promotions folder as the seven hundred other advertising emails they get each day. So a physical prospectus can really break through the noise. Funnily enough, I think that selling prospectuses works contrary to their purpose: If a collector is going to bother buying the prospectus, they're already in the know about the edition. If I start doing prospectuses (I'd like to but no time at the moment...) then I'd be sending them first and foremost to all the collectors who aren't regularly opening my emails.

Hiring a printer to make a prospectus isn't cheap but it probably pays for itself in the end. For a private pressman a prospectus is easy — just a long weekend doing the work you love. The real cost of a prospectus to a private press is likely the paper. Ideally, a prospectus would use the same paper as the edition itself, as a way to show it off. However, many of the papers we use are in low supply or have already ceased being made. If I have a book on Johannot being released, do I really want to use 50 of my precious 2,000 sheets of Johannot to make a prospectus for it? Once that paper is gone, it's gone. Even the papers currently being produced which you see all the time — the Fabrianos, Hahnemühles, Archeses, Sommersets, Losinys — have their own rarity, as different batches of the same paper can vary significantly. Plus you never know if these makers will continue making the paper you like.

>16 grifgon: For me, the issue is time: print a prospectus, or start on the next book? . . . the latter wins every time. For a time I made a broadside from a poem in the book that I would send out as an announcement, but then you got broadsides. . . . oy!

Just referring back to a conversation on another thread. What do institutions think of prospectuses? Is it a good way to reach institutions to take a press more seriously? To stand out. I personally think anything, however small which makes a press stand out is a good thing.

I'm a big fan of prospectuses, even if for no other reason than having provided the opportunity for me to own something from Dard Hunter's Mountain House Press.

I love prospectuses! For me, it has been a way of having a bit of a book/press that otherwise I would not have due to cost.

At least one prospectus sent me years ago led to my eventually getting a copy of the book although 'twas many years later!

A prospectus is, after all, advertising. One doesn't charge for advertising. It is a cost of doing business, but sometimes, that is an expense which may not be considered cost-effective.

For me, a prospectus often preserves details about the books’s production that don’t appear in the colophon, and will otherwise be lost to posterity via internet kippleization.

I haven’t yet published anything commercially but last week was working on a prospectus (i think it’s what it’s called, being more an artistically-made teaser). And this is for a work about three back in the queue and for which the newly written manuscript is undergoing initial review/editing. Aspirations! No criticism to the practice but I wouldn’t charge for a prospectus and consider it a cost of doing “what’s done in the arts business.” But I can see how what’s done changes. The ones I’ve received have me contemplating a Buy. I believe they are very special. As an avid buyer of works, I’m truly appreciative of those sent me or included in a work. I cherish them as an open-hand to join a community to own a piece of that press’ heart. The prospectus is a few beats in advance. I just don’t think I could buy one given the tradition. If so, it should be Extra special.

>20 Glacierman: It’s like having Costco charge for their samples.

My “Attack on the Mill” prospectus will be $20, with free shipping. Anyone who purchases the prospectus will have the $20 deducted from their order of the full edition. So it will in effect be free for those who want both.

I’ve spent a lot of hours tipping-in the Goya reproduction onto each copy, cutting the leather and book cloth swatches by hand and packaging each to be shipped. After cost of production and labor, it all breaks even for me. It isn’t a money making venture. I’m making them because I like prospectuses and am excited to share an early look at the edition.

I’d like to make a prospectus for each of our future releases in a similar way if collectors like the concept.

>24 CJR93: Thumbs up from this collector.

If we are going to explore commercial analogies and discussions for prosptectuses, could another way to look at them is to see them as a sample pack? Sellers of many items sell sampler packs of small items for customers to "try before they buy." The customer exchanges money for a chance to sample items before making a bigger commitment.

(Also, as one who has worked on small farms and attempted to make small crafts at scale, I know how much work goes into making things by hand and how little all of us actually pay for most handmade items compared to the work that goes into them. Charging for a prospectus made with care seems reasonable.

I applaud the artists on here who keep creating in a world stuck in capitalism.)

End rant.

>24 CJR93: This is a great approach. Looking forward to purchasing.