countries are members.
ISBN numbers are allocated in blocks to each member country, and within that, each publishing house has its own code. If you plan to publish several guides or other books and want them to be known and available internationally, you might consider register-
Publishing the field guide 239
CASE STUDY 10.1 CREATION OF A PUBLISHING HOUSE SPECIALIZING
IN BIODIVERSITY AS A RESULT OF PREPARING A FIELD GUIDE: EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM
FAN PUBLICATIONS IN BOLIVIA
Pierre L. Ibisch and Silvia Añez
The Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (Friends of Nature Foundation, or FAN) is one of the most successful conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Bolivia. The mission of FAN is ‘to conserve biodiversity through protection and the sustainable and equitable use of the natural resources in Bolivia’. The Forest Department of FAN, having begun as an entity that largely worked specifically for the institution or within a framework of projects funded by donors, has turned into a unit which is now able to offer services to third-party institutions and which, in addition, is an important generator of technical/scientific information. Because of the growing need to disseminate specialist information about biodiversity and conservation, and having identified a great gap in Bolivia of professional publishers who will publish on this theme, FAN Publications was created.
It all began with the opportunity to publish the Spanish version of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide (Emmons, 1990), the first FAN publication to be edited with an international market in mind. FAN therefore made a special effort to achieve high quality with this work and to establish a process for successful commercialization.
FAN applied for an ISBN number, and the learning process catalysed the creation of the publishing house. The process of obtaining an ISBN number is standard in most countries, but was only introduced to Bolivia during the year that FAN’s first guide was published. In the end, we managed to publish the first Bolivian guide on a biological/
ecological theme that fulfilled all of the requirements.
The experience with this first guide stimulated the publication of further works, many of them having, at least partially, the characteristics of a guide: one was on a different family of plants (orchids in Bolivia), while another was the first guide to the trees of the Inter-Andean Valley of the Department of Santa Cruz. Scientific documents were also published, such as a CD-ROM about progress towards a conservation plan for an important region of the country, and various articles in the Journal of the Bolivian Botanical Society. The publishing house and its products contributed to the creation of a positive, professional and scientific image for FAN. We have reached the point where third-party institutions, such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, are contracting the services of FAN Publications to publish their guides and books, such as A Manual for Researching Wildlife.
The initiative was established with funds destined for the production of the first guide when FAN did not manage to cover all of the indirect costs of translation and editing.
Through an agreement with an oil company (Andina SA), which financed the printing of the first work and supported the setting-up of a publications fund through the sale of the guides, we managed to cover real direct and indirect costs. Currently, the project is in the process of becoming self-sufficient. Since FAN is a non-profit-making NGO, whatever profit comes from its activities serves to increase the publications fund that is being reinvested in new publications about the biodiversity of Bolivia and its conservation.
Through practical experience, we have learned the first lessons of the market and commercialization. We have identified electronic mail as a very efficient and cheap medium, and we have also begun to explore the possibilities of the internet, which can be synergistically linked with email and which has already been exploited by big publishers and distributors.
The website of FAN Publications (www.fan-bo.org/editorial/) provides publicity about the guides and about the publishers themselves to users around the world. For example, it outlines the contents pages, sample pages, reviews and prices of the FAN guide list.
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ing to have your own ISBN code. To do this you need to contact the ISBN agency in your own country and provide them with information on:
•
corporate name, address and publishing imprints;
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the name and telephone number of the person responsible for implementing ISBNs;
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the number of titles published to date;
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the number of titles anticipated for publication over the next ten years.
Publisher prefixes are issued on the basis of this information, along with a manual outlining numbering practices and a logbook listing all ISBNs available to the publisher (International ISBN Agency, 2004).
FINALIZING CONTENT
Make sure that all individuals who have written original parts of the manual are included in the guide’s authorship. In the case of guides resulting largely from local knowledge, there may be a large number of authors recognized as having contributed unique knowledge, as well as editors – those who have made major editorial decisions and are responsible for the final product.
Include in the acknowledgements everyone who has helped in any way but is not actually an author. For example, you can include contributors of information, background researchers and taxonomic experts who have identified specimens.
Finally, double-check that you have sought and obtained permission to reproduce any text or images covered by copyright, and acknowledged their source.
PRINTING
Finding a printer
In Chapter 3 we drew attention to the need to have a rough estimate of printing costs before you start, for the various options – paper, binding and ink are all available in different choices of quality and toughness. Now, however, you need precise quotations, and this will be possible with the results of your testing process from Chapter 9. Armed with precise information on the number of pages and the amount of colour needed, you can revisit your printing companies and make a final decision about who will print your field guide most economically and quickly without compromising on the quality.
The entire process of publishing a book should take from four to six months; but this will depend upon the country and publisher. You should estimate another month for the print production and printing process.
Points to raise with the printer before making your final choice include:
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Confirm costs and quality.
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Confirm the time frame (when is the soonest the printer can begin; how long will it take to produce page proofs; how long after the return of page proofs will the book be printed?).
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Confirm the format in which the printer expects to receive the field guide.
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Agree upon the details of the cover design.
Publishing the field guide 241
Preparing your field guide for the printer
Books are not printed line by line, like a computer printout. Instead, they are printed from plates a page at a time as a single image, and the final copy of your field guide must be supplied, accordingly, as camera-ready copy.
With many publications there is a choice to be made at this stage about how to supply your material to the publisher and then printer. Either the text is supplied as a word-processed document, with illustrations separate, and the whole is formatted by the publisher, or the author supplies camera-ready copy. With a field guide – particularly, of course, a field guide that has been prepared with such close regard for users’ needs and thoroughly tested for usability – there is no question that the approved layout and format must be maintained. Producing camera-ready copy is by far the best way to ensure this. If you prepared your page layouts and mock-up using desktop publishing software (see Chapter 8 and 9), all will be
straightforward at this stage. If you used word-processed text and pasted in illustrations, you will need to communicate very closely with the publisher or other person preparing the final camera-ready copy to ensure that it remains faithful to the format already chosen. This author once had the surprising experience of receiving copies of the field guide to which she had contributed
– fresh off the press and which she opened with great pleasure – with species descriptions inadvertently printed in italics.
In any case, whoever produces the final copy, the authors are responsible for final proofreading – you must be certain that everything is there, nothing is missing, nothing has been repeated, and that there are no spelling mistakes or errors such as ‘see page xx’.
All of the changes recommended in the final testing should, of course, have been incorporated by now; but it is surprising how many may not.
When everything is ready, it will be printed one page to a sheet on high-quality paper. Again, the authors must check for quality of overall appearance – particularly the illustrations, without which your field guide will not work.
Finally, you can keep costs down by following the tips in Box 10.2.
BOX 10.2 REDUCING PRINTING COSTS
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Compare prices and request samples to get the best deal.
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Ordering larger quantities reduces the cost per individual item.
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If you can avoid colour, black ink is cheaper.
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Print on both sides of the paper to reduce the costs of paper and postage.
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Submit perfect camera-ready copy. Any changes that the printer is required to make will cost extra.
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Avoid large areas of solid black. Good ink coverage on areas such as these is difficult, and the printer may charge extra.
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Use standard paper sizes.
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Avoid printers’ ‘convenience’ services, such as folding, collating and stapling – do these yourself.
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Make a deal – small local printers may give you a discount if you promise to use them exclusively.
Source: adapted from www.howtoadvice.com/Printingcosts
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The printing process
Books used to be printed by slotting each individual letter of each individual word into a printing press, rolling ink across it and pressing on the page. The process is now both greatly simplified and much more complex.
You do have some straightforward options if you just want to print a few copies. A simple handwritten or typewritten guide can be photocopied. If you have prepared it in a computer, you can print off multiple copies. But the cost can quickly become enormous, especially with colour pages. Instead, most books are printed from what is called camera-ready copy, where each page is treated as a photograph, or individual image, and stored on a computer disk. The disk goes through a process that turns each page into a separate piece of film negative. Depending upon the country, this can cost up to US$10 per page for black-and-white text and double that for colour pages. The costs are highly variable, depending upon the number of colours; but it is a significant initial cost and one of the main reasons that large print runs are more economical than smaller print runs – the initial costs are distributed over a larger number of books.
The printer then turns the film negative into a page proof for each page, which shows the exact position of everything in the book. These page proofs must be carefully checked by everyone who is responsible for the field guide, and any remaining errors should be reported to the publisher and printer. With luck, a few weeks later your guides will be printed, the publisher will pay for them and they will be delivered to the publisher’s door. How do they reach the users from there?
GETTING YOUR GUIDE TO THE USERS
Letting people know that you have published your field guide, and making sure that enough copies reach the relevant societies, bookshops and businesses, is a key step, but one that is often neglected. In preparing this book, we conducted a survey of most of the field guides that had been produced in eastern Bolivia and northeast Brazil. We interviewed the authors and publishers about the decisions they made, particularly about how they published their guides and ensured that they reached the people who needed to use them. This showed up a widespread weakness: production is not always accompanied by strong publicity, and authors themselves reported that they lack opportunities to communicate with each other and share experiences. These are some of the lessons they reported from experience.
Pricing your field guide
Before you try to sell your field guide you will have to set a price that covers your costs and even, perhaps, gives you some profit – to reinvest in further field guides or to provide the authors or contributors with some benefits and compensation for their time and knowledge. However, the book needs to be affordable, too, so setting the price can be a careful balancing act. If the field guide has been produced as part of a project, the production and printing costs may already be covered by the organization funding the project, and you may be able to distribute the field guides free. Otherwise, you may set a price that you know some users can afford, and then distribute a number of copies free to the contributors and others who cannot afford to pay the cover price.
Publishing the field guide 243
Remember, however, that you are not going to receive the full cover price for every copy sold. Usually, bookshops buy in bulk from the publishers at a discount that can range from 30 to 70 per cent so that they, in turn, make a profit when they sell the book.
Publicity
In planning your guide (see Chapter 3), you will have decided whom the guide is for.
When you are ready to print, announce the forthcoming publication of the guide, and make sure that this information reaches those users by employing the information systems they use themselves – for example, through shops, NGOs or schools.
Start doing this at the stage when you are getting estimates for the printing costs.
Consider what would be a good way of reaching users and buyers. Whether radio, newspapers, newsletters of relevant organizations, conferences or a formal book launch, the best tactics will depend upon the audience you are trying to reach, their shopping and reading practices, and the cultural practices of the country in question. Think beyond book shops: if your guide will appeal to botanists, make sure it is reviewed in botanical journals by sending review copies to the editors. If your book is just what eco-tourists are looking for, arrange for it to be displayed prominently in their favourite hotels.
Distribution
Successful distribution of a field guide to the people who want to buy and use it depends upon making good use of existing networks. Many of these will be the same ones that you use to publicize the book before it is ready to send out.
Although publishers may publicize your book, it is a good idea to think of ways of doing this yourself to boost distribution and sales, especially since any publicity from the publishers is likely to be short-lived. There are a number of steps that you can take to publicize your book and increase sales. Several guides to successful book marketing exist, such as Appelbaum (1998) and Kremer (2000). These offer practical ideas such as advertising on the internet, radio, TV and other forms of media, and advice on the best ways to achieve this. Sending free samples to newspapers can mean free advertising if reviews are written as a result, and many journals also review relevant books.
Direct mailing can be successful, but you must be careful to target the correct market. You can keep a record of stock for the outlets where your book is being sold, so more copies can be made available once all the shelf copies are gone.
Selling field guides can be a new experience for many authors and institutions, and it may seem initially rather mysterious how and when the books sell. It can be extremely valuable, therefore, to record the numbers of guides distributed
to each outlet, and to ask the outlets to keep track of who bought them so that you can carry out an evaluation later on. Large commercial booksellers will not be willing to do this; but many others will and can provide you with important information on who is using your guide.
Under certain circumstances, the authors or contributors to a field guide may, in fact, want to restrict distribution rather than maximize it. This was the case, for example, with the production of a field guide to medicinal plants by the Dusun communities around Kinabalu National Park in Sabah, Malaysia, who wanted to make their knowledge available to their own people and descendents, but only to a limited number
244 Plant Identification
of trusted outside organizations (Laird, 2002). The resulting protocol developed by the communities (Agama, 2002) documented concerns about loss of traditional knowledge, noted the need to use and document knowledge in order to conserve it, highlighted concerns about possible misuse of published knowledge, and set out the terms under which the medicinal plants manual was to be distributed – only within the village, to other villages on receipt of written request, and to collaborating institutions on condition that they, in turn, respected the restrictions on distribution.
FOLLOW-UP: TRACKING THE SUCCESS OF YOUR FIELD GUIDE
For many authors, producing a field guide will have been a huge learning experience, involving the acquisition and sorting of new information, as well as compromises because you cannot find out all you would like to about every species or include pictures of each diagnostic feature. Finding out how your guide has been used and received will add to that learning experience and will make revisions and second editions possible.
Such an evaluation or impact assessment can also help to prove to donors how successfully you have used their money or can highlight ways in which future projects could be improved.
The simple way to tell if your guide is successful is to follow the distribution and sales by keeping a good record of how many copies are sent to each point. But this will only be satisfactory if your only objective is to ensure that people own a copy of the guide. How can you know whether it has achieved your more profound objectives –
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