Serious Steel songbook market

[Heather Rose Jones]

On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Dave & Laura McKinstry wrote:

> I just inquired about a songbook to go with the new _Serious Steel_ album, and got 
> the following answer:
>  
> >...songbooks don't sell
> > nearly as well as the albums do, in our regular filk market; how big a
> > market in the SCA would there be? We'd have to do a couple of hundred copies
> > to be worthwhile, and I'm not too sure of the cost/return ratio.
> 
> Does anyone have any idea on how well such a songbook would sell?  I'm always 
> trying to get my hands on legitimate copies of music I've heard and enjoyed, but I 
> also know I'm not a good judge of when my views are representative and when I'm 
> just being weird, nor do I know how many musicians there are out there who would 
> buy such a songbook at, say, $10, $15 or $20.  Does anyone have an idea?	

As a publisher and co-publisher of nationally distributed songbooks, I 
can give you some idea. My company has co-published two songbooks with 
Wail Songs, one of the major filk companies. One is "Dreamer", a 
collection of about thirty of Julia Ecklar's songs -- including both 
lyrics and type-set music. It retails for $10. We printed about a 
thousand copies in 1990, and to date over 600 have sold. The second is 
"Stave the Wails", an anthology of about 50 songs by various writers. 
Again, it includes both lyrics and type-set music (except for songs set 
to existing tunes). It retails for $15. We printed slightly over 400 
copies in 1991 and to date about 350 have sold. Distribution for both was 
via the Wail Songs mail-order catalog, and by various filk dealers at 
conventions.

Most people who do single-album songbooks do lyrics & chords only (since 
the purchaser is assumed to have bought the album!) and try to keep the 
overhead fairly low. From a production end, songbooks have the 
disadvantage of moving relatively more slowly (than albums), selling to a 
smaller market, attracting more wear and tear as inventory, and requiring 
tying up a sizeable chunk of cash in order to do an economical print-run. 
But they _do_ turn a profit if a reasonable estimation is made of the 
potential market and the function they want the book for. If your buyers 
basically want a lyrics sheet, don't spend your time and money on music 
transcription and artwork. On the other hand, the filk market has long 
had a place for the "art songbook" -- something that is a joy to own, in 
and of itself, outside of its functionality. Another economic 
consideration is that a songbook is far less likely to be profitable if 
the author has authorized free dissemination of his/her work (as Leslie 
has). 

Heather Rose Jones