A Bibliophile's Dreams and Economic Reality

In my last post, I introduced you to my idea of starting a small publishing house and its first book, Mali, der Schlangenbändiger. Many of you responded, and first of all, I want to thank you for that. I had already suspected what the outcome would be, which was precisely why I conducted the survey in the first place. But one particular response kept coming up, and it surprised and even shocked me. Read on to find out how my bibliophile bubble burst.

Starting a small publishing house under the Lesestunden name, designing and producing beautiful books, seems like a natural idea for someone who loves fine editions. In the past, I’ve already had several books made just for myself. The necessary knowledge isn’t particularly difficult to acquire. There’s an abundance of it scattered across the digital world. And since I work in IT and use artificial intelligence extensively every day, I already have access to possibilities that many people are only just beginning to explore. So actually making it happen isn’t much of a problem.

However, there are two major obstacles to the project: the rapidly shrinking (and already diminished) target audience and the exploding production costs. Anyone who follows the figures for the book market knows just how fundamentally this market is changing and how, much like the economy as a whole, it is contracting. At the same time, production costs are skyrocketing due to the wage-price spiral, deindustrialization, and sharply rising raw material costs. All publishers are struggling with this, and I discovered it myself while researching the components for my ideal book. There also seems to have been considerable consolidation among suppliers of bookmaking materials. Some companies have disappeared or been acquired, while others have increased their minimum order quantities (for paper, for example). As a consumer, you don’t really notice any of this. You complain about expensive books, but once you look behind the scenes, you realize that publishers themselves are largely at the mercy of these developments. By now, I’m no longer surprised by the miserable wages in the literary world.

So with my project, I’m targeting a niche audience while facing high costs. The larger the print run, the more becomes possible, because the costs of setup time, embossing dies, labor, and so on can be spread across many copies. Even then, it remains expensive, simply because raw materials account for a large share of the costs. And bear in mind that I’m not even factoring in my own working hours, which would make any profitable calculation impossible. Depending on the target audience, the project therefore makes more or less sense (which, of course, is hardly surprising from a business perspective). That’s why I launched my survey: to get a better sense of the situation.

There are quite a few bibliophiles among the readers of Lesestunden. I’ve always loved that, and of course I knew that my reach was very limited. For most people who pick up a book, it’s all about the content. To the majority, a book is a form of entertainment, something to be consumed and then used up. That’s perfectly understandable, and I often feel the same way about other forms of media. Here on Lesestunden, however, there is certainly a disproportionately large number of bibliophiles for whom a book is more than just another consumer product.

Even in my survey, very few people clicked “Yes.” Around 50 euros seems to be the upper limit at the moment. And that applies even to those who truly appreciate beautiful books. It’s understandable: 50 euros is already a considerable amount of money. To justify spending more, the content would have to be something truly special. A timeless classic, a story you return to again and again, or a substantial, lengthy classic presented in an elaborate new translation. If I lower the price, Mali becomes just another ordinary book, when the whole point is to create a genuinely beautiful edition. I could increase the print run, but that would expose me to enormous financial risk, and it’s unlikely that I’d find hundreds of buyers for a book that would still be relatively expensive.

The conclusion: the target audience is simply too small to compensate for the difficult economic conditions. That isn’t surprising either. Otherwise, other publishers would already be offering such a book, and someone else would have seized the business opportunity long ago. My advantage would have been low personnel costs. As a tiny publishing house, I could have brought books back into print that were right on the edge of commercial viability, because I would have virtually no ongoing expenses. But even as a small gap in the system, the imbalance is simply too great.

I also received several responses that genuinely shocked me. A great many people wrote that they simply couldn’t afford the book. Not even if they were willing in principle to spend that much on one. For many, their money already runs out before the end of the month, and a book like this would completely blow their budget. This wasn’t an isolated response. Even if people wanted to buy it, galloping inflation has eaten away so much of their income over the past few years that a luxury product like this (and a beautifully produced book has become a luxury product) is simply out of reach.

I’m not disappointed. I’ve always had a fairly realistic outlook, and I’m pretty good with numbers. It was fascinating to look behind the scenes of book production, and I learned an incredible amount. I’d be happy to write a post about it if there’s any interest. Perhaps I’ll publish Mali as a regular print-on-demand edition. I still need to think about that, because it would involve quite a bit more work, and print-on-demand is an outrageous rip-off in its own right. I’ll write about that too.

So brace yourselves: there won’t be a deluxe edition of Mali for the time being. But I’m already working on my next idea, and I’ll be introducing it soon. As you can see, I’m keeping myself busy in the literary world.

Once again, I want to thank all of you. For your feedback, your openness, your often refreshingly direct words, and for taking the time to read my blog. The bibliophile journey will certainly continue here.