Glad you like SHOTGUNS FOR WINGSHOOTING!
Must confess, however, that was one of the books Eileen and I wrote for various publishing companies that pushed us into self-publishing. When the publisher originally approached me, their proposal was for a very "affordable" book, under $20 cover price, which meant that with the standard royalty agreement I'd get maybe $1.50 for each book sold, and most gun books don't sell more than a few thousand copies these days. It just wasn't worth my time to write it, and I told them so.
So they came back with a proposal to do a hardcover with color photos. The cover price would be enough higher than the first book to up the royalty considerably. So I said OK, and my contract was to deliver the manuscript and photos a year later.
They contacted me a month later and said if I could get it done in three months, a major bookstore chain would buy a bunch of copies and display them prominently. So I said OK, and got it done.
Well, they liked my photos so much they then decided to turn it into a coffee-table style book, printed on high-grade shiny paper with over 100 photos. Trouble was, this meant the cover price was $49.95. Now, even general book buyers go into sticker shock on books priced much over $30, and not many hunters are willing to pay 50 bucks for a book just because of pretty pictures. I told them this was a mistake, but they considered themselves publishing geniuses and said that's what they were gonna do.
In the meantime, the accelerated publishing schedule made them "forget" to send me page proofs before publication, to correct any set-up errors. This procedure is in every publishing contract. There were some errors, including a few from the guy who edited the manuscript.
Turned out I was right and the book didn't sell well. I never saw any royalties because my advance was never amortized--and the advance was as much as I make writing 2-3 magazine articles.
Other than the advance, the only money I made on the book was selling it on our website. But even the reduced price we could buy it for (about what bookstores pay) meant we had to sell it for $35 to make any money, but within a year we were seeing it for sale in various places for $25. We asked the publishing company about this, and they said they'd "remaindered" the book, basically selling it for the printing cost to book retailers. Also in my contract was a clause to be informed of a decision to remainder, giving me first option on buying books, but again they somehow "forgot" to tell me. Did manage to buy a few hundred at that point, which are what we're selling on our website for $26, which includes shipping.
A few months later the same publisher approached me about doing a hunting rifle book along the same lines. This meant THEY made money on my shotgun book, probably from the big bookstore deal. I told them I'd need a lot more money up front, but their best offer was way below what I needed.
That, however, was far from the worst of our experiences with traditional publishers. Had to take another one to court because he was cooking the account books to totally screw me out of royalties for a book that sold very well.
All of which is why we now have total control of our book publishing, including the account books!
