For the information of those of you kind enough to express an interest in this project:
Having accepted delivery of 1,000 copies of this trilingual anthology (and – of course – having paid the printers for them), all profits from which are pledged to volunteers who work with refugees, once on the train to Barcelona with ca 800 copies... I discovered several mistakes* (in the translations into Catalan and [even more] into Spanish) which meant that I was unable to sell them at the listed price.
I did manage to sell 6 copies @ 5€ instead of 7€, explaining each time about the mistakes.
So much for my high hopes of selling 1,000 copies at the Barcelona book fairº!
So much for my high hopes of selling surplus copies to the Catalan library network and education department! @ 5€, the book is worth its price for private ownership by individuals warned about the glitches. But totally unattractive as a proposition for use by several users interested in improving their knowledge/usage of 3 languages.
The plan is now to print 1,000 bookmarks to go with the books, the bookmarks listing the corrections w/ page numbers, and (together with the “house” bookmark), offer each copy on-line @ 5€.
Since nobody knows that our web-site exists, prospects are bleak. Since bookmarks go missing, this does not solve the problem re: libraries and schools.
* The mistakes are in the Catalan and Spanish translations of a FEW stories and are not due to the my lack of fluency in the 3 languages, rather to the fact that I was in a rush to get the book to the printers in time for the book fair. Never again! Don't do rush jobs! Rushing meant:
a) not having sufficient time to check and recheck for mistakes;
b) not having sufficient time to get enough sleep. (I haven't had more than 3 nights this past month with more than 4-5 hours of sleep... often even less. The brain does not function at its best under these conditions, and neither do the eyes.)
º The Barcelona book fair is held on Les Rambles (Las Ramblas in Spanish), a central and favoured stroll for tourists. On the day of the fair, it was chock full of people struggling to make headway in both directions. Many of them looked neither to left nor to right, apparently only interested in crossing “stroll down Las Ramblas” off of their “must-do list for tourists”.
In addition, I was assigned a position right at the lower end. The vast majority of Barcelona residents who ARE interested in this fair are there for one purpose: to buy ONE book and ONE rose per couple (in earlier, even-more-sexist times, the rose was always for her, the book always for him) as a kind of duty/tradition on Catalunya's patron saint's day. (Sant Jordi = Saint George.) Once they'd bought ONE book and ONE rose (at an exorbitant price), they could return home, proud of the fact that they'd done their duty. Since most of them start at the upper (more accessible) end, the dribbles that even managed to walk past my stall were no longer interested in books. They were either tourists determined to stay the course, or “done my bit” locals. I believe that the only books that I sold were to a scanty few who started from the lower end.
Of course, other factors were at play, but honestly: with maybe one exception, everybody who thumbed through the book was enthusiastic about it. (Some had no money left on them.)
Lorraine, I agree with you (in fact, you agree with me, since I pointed this out first) that La Gr@not@ can't offer a less-than-perfect book to libraries and schools. This would shoot our [yet-to-be-earned] reputation as publishers down in flames.
We are hoping to sell enough copies to individuals to [mostly] recoup the original printing costs, then pay for a new print-run. An individual might not lose a bookmark with a list of corrections. A library copy's bookmark would disappear at the first (or possibly second) loan. The price has been reduced from 7€ to 5€ (3€ to contributors, after the first copy at print-cost), the price including our standard bookmark in 4 languages (the anthology itself is in 3) and another with all corrections. I sold 6 copies to a contributor today and he said that he'd ask around for other possible outlets.
Meanwhile, we're keeping this project open, hoping to either expand the anthology or found a series on the same subject, as well as opening up a new project: illustrated short stories for children, each written and illustrated by a child-adult tandem. Most people who have heard this idea are very enthusiastic! See http://la-granota.com/tadpoles.htm
One other thought: if you produced an e-version of the book, you would have chance to correct the errors, and sell it internationally (though check the various e-book sellers' Ts&Cs as they may not like the paper version being sold separately).
Lorraine
Sounds as thought the fair is a victim of its own success. How are people supposed to browse in those conditions?
You'll only ever make this mistake once: lesson learnt the hard way (and I speak from experience).
The only way to get it into libraries and education departments is to do a print-run with word-perfect copy - not what you want to hear, I know; and you may be able to sell some of this run as 'seconds' to individuals, or use them in advertising somehow. You've had positive feed-back, which is worth its weight in gold, and the book itself is obviously fine as a concept and as a product in general terms.
Sorry it was such a let-down, but it was only the first outing, and clearly not the ideal venue it should have been. Get some sleep: going over it in your head won't change a thing except that you'll be too exhausted and depressed to think. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture, remember; give yourself a break.
Lorraine