Writing Another Book

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Running Arrow Bill

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Been writing another book. Started late 2007. Should be finished this year (2009). Just doing it in whatever spare time I find as well as the "inspiration of the day".

Title is: "Running A Successful Texas Longhorn Program: Business Management & Marketing Strategies for Longhorn and Other Breed Producers"

Book is directed at the novice and/or new breeder (Longhorns and other breeds as information applies). Will be 10 Sections (chapters). Probably 100+ or so pages.

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Still being a feature writer in the bi-monthly journal of the International Texas Longhorn Association's Longhorn Drover. Going into my second year of writing for them.

Bill
 
Good information to know. As a new person in the cattle business I started out with Registered Longhorns. I love the cattle, and have my first 5 calves ready to do something with. I've heard our local sale barn does not like them, and they don't sell well. Need to find other markets for the calves. They are now about 7 months old, and have not been worked yet. Let us know when the book is out.. I'll be in line to buy one!! :D
 
TC Cattle":3d3btn8y said:
Good luck!

Do you have a publisher?

The publisher will be "Running Arrow Farm"...

With any nitch book market, written works are often privately published, especially when sales of under 1,000 copies are expected. We've published other items in the past (e.g., "DIY" manuals, etc.). This way, there are no middle man profits to share, etc. The ones we published are put in 3 ring binders to make it very easy to update and make changes as needed as time goes on. Keep a few copies in stock and print up more as needed. Even when someone contracts with a "book printer/binder firm", it usually costs several thousand dollars up front for a first printing (I'm not talking about "Vanity Publishers" here, just printer/binder firms). The "regular minor houses" (not major book publishers) usually only pay a 10 to 15% royalty and if one's manuscript is accepted they usually only print up 1,000 to 3,000 copies and often put a high price on the books to cover their costs. Then, with all publishers, one usually has to get an agent (are some exceptions) who also takes a percentage as long as the item is published/sold.
 
I'm a screenwriter, so believe me, I understand the ridiculous amount of work that would take.

There's a site called Blurb - http://www.blurb.com and you can do all kinds of publishing and different formats. I did ones for our wedding and they turned out spectacular. I'm not sure of the cost in printing in mass - you might be able to contact them and get a great deal. If you made it a little fancier (technical term) - i.e. not in a binder - you could market it locally and, I think, maybe even on sites like Amazon.
 
We published a horse training book years ago and ended up self publishing because of the fact that selling to a publisher they wanted to buy all the rights and re-edit the content and often when that happens they also just edit for length. In the end they want to sell a low cost book and as you mentioned give you a 10% royalty. So we had 1200 copies printed but still make way more profit per book then if we had sold out. We went the route of hard copy so had to put a lot of money up front to do it, yours sounds like a nice and easy way to do it by printing copies as needed and putting pages in a ring binder.
 

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