Binding and pricing of printed sheet music
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#1: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Archivist,  PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 4:04 pm
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With a few editions in preparation to be printed soon I wanted to start a thread to discuss what people value in editions of guitar music. A full announcement of what the editions will cover will come when I know a date everything will be ready, but that will be soon.

The editions will generally be 80-90 pages with about 10% of the content in-depth research on the composer and the compositions. Once the print versions are out then there will be more discussion and publicly available files to test my distribution method of digital versions and get some feedback on content, security, quality, compatibility, etc.

For now I would like to hear opinions regarding binding and pricing. The price range has been targeted, but I would like a wider view of opinions on pricing, specifically from non-US guitarists. I know the situation in China well for sheet music as far as quality, pricing and availability goes. I think in countries like China and Brazil, among others, standard US/European pricing makes things too expensive. Distribution there is also possibly a problem. I have a concept for "equivalent value pricing" where, as long as the editions are purchased directly from me, there are exceptions to the standard pricing in countries where the average income is considerably lower than most Western countries. For example, a Chanterelle edition of Coste might cost $30 which equates to R$66 in Brazil or ¥243 in China. Some 120 page editions of guitar music I purchased in China (not pirated) done by Chinese publishers cost ¥14-16. Of course that generally equates to the publisher's cost of printing here in the US, but there are a great number of editions by Western publishing companies for sale in China for the same price.

So the possibilities are standard pricing for everyone, a single standard price and single exceptional price, or a single standard and multiple standard prices. I don't want to get too much of a headache about this, but follows the global mission of DGA.

Now, regarding binding I know there are a lot of opinions. I have heard people hate perfect binding where the pages are glued to the binding. Some have even said they rip or cut out the pages and rebind them so they will stay on the music stand. At one time I attached heavy wires to my music stand to make those editions stay open. The other option is saddle-stitching where all pages are folded and bound with heavy staples on the spine. This will allow the music to stay open, but has a limited page count. There are also other visual aspects to these bindings which may affect perceived value. Whether libraries prefer one of the other I think is not of concern because only if there was an option of hard/soft bound would there be an obvious preference. Currently there are no plans for any DGA edition to be hard bound.

I welcome any and all opinions.
#2: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Guest,  PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:41 pm
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How about coil binding? I have Kinko's do this to perfect-bound volumes.
#3: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Matanya, Location: Columbus, OH, USA PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:10 pm
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Archivist wrote:
So the possibilities are standard pricing for everyone, a single standard price and single exceptional price, or a single standard and multiple standard prices. I don't want to get too much of a headache about this, but follows the global mission of DGA.

You need to think this through a bit more carefully. If you are planning POD only, then it does not matter how you price each individual iteration of the edition. But if you are planning on a print run which will need to be stored, then you will have to consider that if you have a special low price for China, there will be no way to prevent some enterprising Chinese to buy your editions in the Chinese price, and sell them in the US or Europe at a considerable profit, thus competing with you with your own editions. Now if I understand you correctly, you will avoid selling through dealers and distributors, and do direct sales only. That is not going to work, for the simple reason that in order to pay for the printing costs within a reasonable short time, you will need to sell, right away, a good number of copies. Unless you find a printer who will do it for you for free, it cannot be done directly. Trust me. And no dealer or distributor will ever deal with you, unless you have one fixed Suggested List Price (FOB Wichita).

Archivist wrote:
Now, regarding binding I know there are a lot of opinions. I have heard people hate perfect binding where the pages are glued to the binding. Some have even said they rip or cut out the pages and rebind them so they will stay on the music stand. At one time I attached heavy wires to my music stand to make those editions stay open. The other option is saddle-stitching where all pages are folded and bound with heavy staples on the spine. This will allow the music to stay open, but has a limited page count. There are also other visual aspects to these bindings which may affect perceived value. Whether libraries prefer one of the other I think is not of concern because only if there was an option of hard/soft bound would there be an obvious preference. Currently there are no plans for any DGA edition to be hard bound.

Libraries actually prefer soft cover, because this allows them to rebind the books in special library binding. You can saddle stitch up to about 100 pages, but that does not make them any easier to lay flat. Perfect bound is a red herring. Only cheap skates use it for music books. The common binding for big music books is Smyth Sewn binding, which is very strong. You can actually press the spine down all you want and it will not break. Some printers will have available what is known as lay-flat binding, which is really Perfect Binding whete the book is glued to the cover only at the edges of the spine. Does not last very long with heavy use.
#4: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Matanya, Location: Columbus, OH, USA PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:14 pm
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Anonymous wrote:
How about coil binding? I have Kinko's do this to perfect-bound volumes.

That's fine, for an individual user. But if a publisher wishes to count on library sales (there are 700 libraries in the US alone who buy sheet music), coil binding will be a kiss of death. Libraries do not buy coiled or wire bindings, because they do not last long, and damage the books next to them on the shelf.
#5: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Archivist,  PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 11:22 pm
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Matanya wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
How about coil binding? I have Kinko's do this to perfect-bound volumes.

That's fine, for an individual user. But if a publisher wishes to count on library sales (there are 700 libraries in the US alone who buy sheet music), coil binding will be a kiss of death. Libraries do not buy coiled or wire bindings, because they do not last long, and damage the books next to them on the shelf.

Yes, coil binding is not even a consideration. There is a very complete edition of the works of Padovec, but it is coil bound. It is dissapointing that so much work went into it, but the format makes it look like it was not well done.
#6: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Archivist,  PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 12:19 am
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Matanya wrote:
Archivist wrote:
So the possibilities are standard pricing for everyone, a single standard price and single exceptional price, or a single standard and multiple standard prices. I don't want to get too much of a headache about this, but follows the global mission of DGA.

You need to think this through a bit more carefully. If you are planning POD only, then it does not matter how you price each individual iteration of the edition. But if you are planning on a print run which will need to be stored, then you will have to consider that if you have a special low price for China, there will be no way to prevent some enterprising Chinese to buy your editions in the Chinese price, and sell them in the US or Europe at a considerable profit, thus competing with you with your own editions. Now if I understand you correctly, you will avoid selling through dealers and distributors, and do direct sales only. That is not going to work, for the simple reason that in order to pay for the printing costs within a reasonable short time, you will need to sell, right away, a good number of copies. Unless you find a printer who will do it for you for free, it cannot be done directly. Trust me. And no dealer or distributor will ever deal with you, unless you have one fixed Suggested List Price (FOB Wichita).
I have considered all of this. I expected this response. This is an idea I have that certainly has some drawbacks. You yourself have experienced the situation where enterprising Ukrainian publishers decided to put out their own versions of the works you published. One book or many books acquired does not make a difference. It would be more cost effective for someone to simply copy the books and post them on the web. But someone has already done that, including your editions. So selling for a lower price to certain countries would only inhibit piracy. If someone has a choice of buying a $30 original or a $3 pirate edition then their choice will be obvious, however if they have the choice of a $5-10 original or a $3 pirate then is the choice still certain? If done right the same thing would apply to digital editions. This is all still concept, of course, and how in reality this would work I don't have the details. I'm just trying to examine all aspects both positive and negative.

I understand the problems involved with distributors and dealers knowing it is possible to buy something for a lower price elsewhere. In fact, I am very upset at having to pay standard US pricing for a CD of Yang Xuefei which I neglected to buy in Beijing in the summer. Why should I pay $16 at GSP for something I could get for $3. Is that not the same issue we are discussing? This CD is the exact same CD from the same Chinese company, not a pirate, at a major sheet music store in Liulichan in Beijing. Lots of major European publishers are on the shelves with the exact same editions you and I can buy here, the only difference is the cover is in Chinese while the content is in German or English. All these can be had for a few dollars. I have no clue where you would buy pirate versions of classical guitar music. Maybe there is no demand for that kind of thing there. The only way to beat pirating is to price things at their local value. Sure, some store here would not like it if the same book were priced much less in China, but how many people do they get calling from China to order music from them? That is why the concept is for this to be an offer exclusively from the publisher. If I find a distributor who will deal with countries like Brazil and China and not think they can sell my editions for the same price they can in the US or Europe then I'll change my mind. I don't recall anything with Theodore Presser or Carl Fischer on it, but it may have been there.

Another example is Japan. CD's produced in Japan cost around ¥3200, the equivalent of $27. If you want a CD made in the US it will cost about ¥1800 or the equivalent of $15, yet you will see both on the shelves next to each other. (These are prices I remember from 1998, but it is just an example of pricing disparities.)

I most certainly am interested in dealing with dealers and distributors, but I am not interested in any kind of "exclusive" distribution deal because then you are the mercy of their interest or lack of. I do not expect to be able to sell at a price equivalent to Chinese publications. China is kind of an extreme example, but I guarantee it will become a bigger focus in the future. There is even a Shanghai Musikmesse now. I can also guarantee that if software and music companies priced their products to the market then pirating would not be such a big deal there.

I won't do POD. I don't find it cost effective anyway because the quality is low (at least for music), POD standard sizes are not standard music sizes and I have not found a big enough price difference to standard printing that would sway me that way. I have absolutely no desire to release a shoddy product just to shave a few cents of my costs.

Matanya wrote:

Archivist wrote:
Now, regarding binding I know there are a lot of opinions. I have heard people hate perfect binding where the pages are glued to the binding. Some have even said they rip or cut out the pages and rebind them so they will stay on the music stand. At one time I attached heavy wires to my music stand to make those editions stay open. The other option is saddle-stitching where all pages are folded and bound with heavy staples on the spine. This will allow the music to stay open, but has a limited page count. There are also other visual aspects to these bindings which may affect perceived value. Whether libraries prefer one of the other I think is not of concern because only if there was an option of hard/soft bound would there be an obvious preference. Currently there are no plans for any DGA edition to be hard bound.

Libraries actually prefer soft cover, because this allows them to rebind the books in special library binding. You can saddle stitch up to about 100 pages, but that does not make them any easier to lay flat. Perfect bound is a red herring. Only cheap skates use it for music books. The common binding for big music books is Smyth Sewn binding, which is very strong. You can actually press the spine down all you want and it will not break. Some printers will have available what is known as lay-flat binding, which is really Perfect Binding whete the book is glued to the cover only at the edges of the spine. Does not last very long with heavy use.

I've seen the lay-flat binding and it is an interesting idea, but indeed it does not seem well suited to heavy use. As the size of the editions I am working on has increased more than expected the issue of perfect-binding with or without Smyth sewing has come up.
#7: Re: Binding and pricing of printed sheet music Author: Matanya, Location: Columbus, OH, USA PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 12:36 pm
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Archivist wrote:
It would be more cost effective for someone to simply copy the books and post them on the web. But someone has already done that, including your editions. So selling for a lower price to certain countries would only inhibit piracy.

I doubt that very much. On line piracy is not driven by economic pressures but by ideological ones. Music should be free and belong to the people, not to the money grabbing greedy publishers. Consider this: the great majority of downloadings from the Russian and Korean pirate sites are not made by poor and indigent Russians and Koreans, but by US cheapskates.

As for commercial piracy: there is no way to prevent it or inhibit it except by international treaties and agreements. As long as the Chinese government chooses not to abide by such agreements or code of conduct and enforce the law, there will be piracy.

Archivist wrote:
If someone has a choice of buying a $30 original or a $3 pirate edition then their choice will be obvious, however if they have the choice of a $5-10 original or a $3 pirate then is the choice still certain?

I would propose that it is still the same choice. $3.- is still less than $5.-

Archivist wrote:
I most certainly am interested in dealing with dealers and distributors, but I am not interested in any kind of "exclusive" distribution deal because then you are the mercy of their interest or lack of.

Depends on the kind of contract you can negotiate. In general, if your editions are sought after and sell reasonably fast, the dealers would be interested. But if they sit on the shelves as just so much dead-weight, of course they will not be interested. Of course, you can always design your own distribution system, just like any of the big distributors. But that requires a lot of time an management. One of the biggest time wasting, was to chase after music stores who do not pay their bills.
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