The last of the Chek Jawa Guidebook

This is the last box of Chek Jawa Guidebooks that was in the warehouse:
Here's more about the Guidebook, with sample pages.

That's it, no more.

Except for whatever is already out with the bookstores (mainly Kinokuniya and Nature's Niche).

It's taken five years to sell off about 4,000 copies (there were a lot of spoilt copies).

Will there be a reprint? I'm afraid not.

Why? Because it's darn expensive to print a book, and takes a lot of effort and time to write one.

Writing books don't make you rich. In fact, it costs you.

Here's why:
60% of retail price goes to distributor, of which 40% goes to bookshop
10-20% goes to publisher (depending on how nice your publisher is)
The remainder goes to cover costs as well as spoilt copies.

(Is there another way to do this? No, it's silly to avoid using a distributor. Bookshops will only buy from distributors and not all distributors at that. And bookshops are not very sympathetic towards local publications. You can see that the guidebook is not carried by all major bookstores. If the distributor and bookshop cannot make money, they won't take your book. There are costs involved in keeping stocks for years, costs which are taken out of the retail price. To print less raises the printing cost per copy. So, realistically, this is the deal that all local authors have to face.)

At $18 per copy, the Chek Jawa Guidebook barely covered costs.

And costs were low because everyone contributed services free: photos, identification, scientific writing and proof-reading, layout; or paid out of their own pocket for cost of trips and costs of pre-production layouts. The tiny bit of 'profit' was contributed to the NParks Garden City Fund for supporting efforts on Chek Jawa.

Despite the low cost, the guidebook took a long time to sell out.

I am thinking of recasting all the info in the Chek Jawa Guidebook for a new guidebook to cover all shores including our reefs. Mainly so as not to waste the very good effort put in by the more than 40 contributors to the Guidebook. Also, because we now have a better understanding of the rest of our shores.

But I remember still, how much effort and time it took to do the Guidebook. Not to mention the capital cost. It will take at least 6 months to write, and lots of money to print. And am rather apprehensive about it.

What do you think? Should I make the effort to write an all-shores guidebook?