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[GWL]: book packagers

Book packagers have been around a long time and serve an incredibly
useful purpose to publishers.  Some of the very best independent book
designers consider themselves packagers and some of the cheapest
"knock-off" printers consider themselves packagers.  There is a lot of
room in between.  And many ways to find employment within the packager's
umbrella.  (Is using a gramatically incorrect sentence OK now?  Will
someone, mercifully, make that thread go away <g> ?)

I am very leery of most packagers because they cut into the margin of
profits.  As a photographer, I have issues with many packagers because
most offer reduced fees.  They need to make their own profit on top of
what the publisher expects so they squeeze from photo budgets.  For
this, I deal with few packagers anymore, but I understand their scheme
and don't fault them for it.  They fill a niche.  

But, in my opinion, they too often fill a niche for publishers who are
either not serious about their subject or not serious about their
authors.  Packagers sell products, not books.  Whether the publisher
hires a packager to put a book together, or a packager shops their own
package to a publisher, there is little interest in the author. 
Packagers put
together a package, that's their job, and are gone. That's fine for people
who want jobs; not so fine for authors who want a long-term commitment
to selling the book.

Now, some smart authors may very well take advantage of this in reverse.
 They can pitch an idea,  make a fee for producing a product for a
packager, and disappear too.  But either way you look at the equation,
selling the actual book is not important.  The package is important.

This may seem tedious argument, but as an author myself with royalty
agreements with my publishers, I am more interested in working directly
with publishers who have a direct interest in selling the book.  If
packagers could offer me a fair price for my work, I would certainly not
turn down offers, royalty or not; but it is my experience that their
budgets seem 25 - 40% lower than publishers. I wonder where that % goes ?

No doubt there are those on the list who have good things to say about
packagers, and they DO serve an important service for the publishing
industry.  But if you sell them on a book idea you will be at their
mercy for finding a publisher, and if you are hired by a packager to
work on an idea of theirs, you will likely be in a work for hire agreement.

Saxon Holt

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