Niche markets can prove profitable to a publisher, especially today when the Net makes it practical to connect to customers worldwide.

One niche market system that might be extended to new markets can be found in limited edition horror novels. These capture a tiny segment of the book buyer market — and milk it for all it’s worth.

There are several such publishers who specialize in printing horror books. These presses offer titles with foil covers, embossing, handmade covers (leather or paper), signed and numbered books, etc., etc. Basically they offer not only a reading experience, but an objet d’art to be collected and cherished for a long time.

I think this is a system that publishers of other types of books would find worth exploring, especially self-publishers and small presses. It offers a way to make a lot of money without printing huge numbers of books.

The easiest of these gimmicks to bring into play is the limited edition of perhaps only hundreds of copies, after which — no more will be printed. Such a system creates “instant rarities” and ideally these are signed and numbered by the author and perhaps the cover artist to give an additional bit of value to the package. (The small numbers of books printed allows the publisher to ship the books to the author and artist so they need not be living too close to the publisher for this to work.)

If a leather cover, embossing, foil, or whatever can be added to the package, all the better — and the price can be raised accordingly.

This system transforms a standard-sized book that might command only a few dollars and have to be sold by the thousands to make a profit into a title that can demand a huge cover price ($100 or more). That price means the publisher can print only a few hundred books yet make a tidy profit for himself and the author.

Once a customer buys one book, he becomes a potential buyer for more, so even a modest client list can supply the publisher with potential buyers for future titles.

Perhaps the most “limited edition” books are those created by some artists. These folks create a “book” of their drawings and sketches, often leaving the pictures loose in a cover or envelope (often heavily decorated or otherwise customized). These are limited editions in the extreme – only one copy. But here again there seems to be a tiny market of ready buyers that some artists have successfully tapped into. Might a small publisher tap into this market as well, offering a variety of books to its list of book collectors?

Here’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question: Might other genres of books capitalize on this sort of arrangement? For example fantasy, Western, and science fiction fans seem willing to shell out big bucks for all sorts of memorabilia and collectibles. Might not handmade covers on limited editions in the science fiction or fantasy markets have an even greater potential than the horror book market?

And the beauty of the limited edition book is that it shifts the advantage into the court of the small press or self-publisher, doing away with dealing with distributors (since the marketing is via the net or direct mail) and greatly reducing the number of copies produced and shipped to make a profit.

Making books collectible maximizes the amount earned on each book printed. It becomes possible to earn a lot of money with a very small print run.

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When not scheming about new ways to make money in the publishing industry, Duncan Long works as a freelance book cover illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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