The Earth is the Lords back in print

[ken_sylvania]

The soaring prices for this book on Amazon (and eBay) were pretty clearly listed by actual private sellers who were selling single used copies.

Must be some wealthy Mennos out there if they are willing to pay $1200 for a single book.

Edsel Burdge told me once that you could typically get one for $300 at the Lancaster Mennonite historical society book auctions. My guess is the ones for sale online were by dealers looking to make money on a rare out-of-print book, selling to collectors. I doubt that too many Mennonites would be willing to pay $1200 to learn how much their great-great-great grandfather paid for a tract of land in Conestoga.

I wonder if the reprint has already deflated the value of the used first edition books. Here's the Amazon and eBay listings currently.

The online listings have been running at around $750 to $850 for the last six months or so. The one I saw sell at auction for over $1,200 was bought by someone who wasn't obviously plain.

[HondurasKeiser]

Just pre-ordered mine. I've been waiting for this for years.

[Ernie]

So just for fun, let's do some estimates on how many people might purchase the new edition.

Here are my guestimates:

700 - Old Order Mennonites (horse)
300 - Old Order Mennonites (car)
225 - Ultra-Conservative Mennonites
100 - Intermediate-Conservative Mennonites
50 - Moderate Conservative Mennonites
20 - Progressive Conservative Mennonites
50 - Other Plain Anabaptists
25 - Theologically Conservative Evangelical Anabaptists - Rosedale, parts of LMC and Brethren in Christ.
75 - Neo-evangelical Anabaptists - The majority of LMC and Brethren in Christ, a few exiting MC USA congregations.
30 - Conservative mainline - Large chunk of MC USA and COB.
30 - Moderate mainline - Large chunk of MC USA and COB.
4 - Progressive mainline - Some percentage of MC USA and COB.

100 - Non-Anabaptist individuals

70 - Anabaptist Libraries/Churches/Schools
50 - Other Christian Libraries

[Ernie]

I'm guessing they will decide the size of the printing based on the pre orders that come in.

Once you have a print run setup, additional copies are cheap to make. They could easily print up a 10 year supply and just warehouse it for future sales. That would make more sense than just doing tiny print runs every few years.

The printing is probably outsourced, maybe even overseas.

Second printing was in Canada.

[Ernie]

Here is how to tell if your copy is first printing or second printing.

Go to page 1131. If the caption under the photo says, "Potato Harvest", it is first printing (2001). If it says "Photo Harvest" it is second printing. (2018)


Don't ask me when and how I leaned this.

[JohnH]

Why a reprint wasn't done until 2018 I have no idea. And why the second printing only had limited copies as well, I have no idea. And why a third printing didn't happen until 2025 I have no idea. This is about Lancaster County Mennonite history, after all, and many descendants have interest in this book.

If they would have done regular reprintings over the years, the book would be worth less than original selling price.

I assume the publisher is a smaller organization without a ton of cash reserves. With a few exceptions, print materials are continuing to decline in demand, and it probably is barely worth it to them. I don't know what a book of that size costs to publish, but I'd guess $50 or more. 5,000 copies would be a $250,000 investment, and there's no guarantee that that many would sell in the next five or ten years. It's probably a financial risk. This book does have a fairly limited audience after all.

Simultaneously, used copies are going for $750 or $1,200. If they could move 5,000 copies at $750, that would be a $3.5 million profit. Not much financial risk there.

[Ernie]

Something that is hard for Transitionals to understand is the amount of value that Traditionals and the traditional movement benefit from reading and
studying history.

Recently a mover and shaker in the Progressive-conservative movement (who grew up in an ultra-conservative setting) told me that he has never seemed to be able to get inspiration from looking backwards. Serving the present and the future is what gives him inspiration. (I can see how he came to this conclusion. His dad was the worst of hypocrites, and his mom didn't give him much to build on either. To his credit, he's doing a fair bit better than many of his siblings. We'll see if his children are able to benefit something from his attempt at authenticity.)

My dad used to tell me about Beachy Amish-Mennonites of his era who were known to say, "It's not important to know where we came from. It is important to know where we are going." And so, when I began interacting with Beachy Amish-Mennonites, it was interesting to hear a young father who grew up New Order Amish, make this same comment. And guess where this 60 year old's children are today.

The Traditionalist perspective goes like this, "It is hard to know where you are going unless you understand where you came from."

Some time ago a Beachy with interest in history did a nice book including photographs about this history of his congregation, one of the first Beachy Amish-Mennonite congregations. He got a bunch of copies printed. He thought he wrote it interestingly. And with a smile on his face, he assured us that it had no bias. My reading in the book revealed a strong support of Fundamentalist and Evangelical changes that made the church into what it was. It didn't really wet an appetite for the sort of rootedness and appreciation for historical values that a person might glean from reading the Earth is the Lords. He had a really hard time getting people to buy his book, even those who were very familiar with his church. He tried promoting them at the constituency Bible school but the young people were not interested in it. He kept discounting them and finally just gave them away.

I remember telling my fellow teachers at the Bible School that if a book like this had been published in an Ultra-conservative church, he would have likely have found buyers for all his books. He may have even needed to do more printings.

All this to say that those who have a distaste for, or at the best have an indifference about their heritage -- they are not likely going to try to preserve the good parts of the heritage for their children, and for sure not buy history books about their heritage. For them, history is bunk.

[Ken]

How much is a 10-year supply?

Average annual sales x 10.

Any publisher should have that information.

Publisher only had it for sale new for maybe six months in the last 15 years. They know exactly how many they sold during that time, but average annual sales isn't a useful metric.
Also having a warehouse full of these for sale at $120/ea might actually depress demand where a limited edition could spur demand. I've paid several hundred already for a book that I might not own if it was readily available in stock at the local bookstore. Just because I knew I wanted the book sometime and this was one of only limited chances to get it.

Well, that sounds like a completely irrational way to run a publishing business.

But what do I know I guess.

[Ernie]

Average annual sales x 10.

Any publisher should have that information.

Publisher only had it for sale new for maybe six months in the last 15 years. They know exactly how many they sold during that time, but average annual sales isn't a useful metric.
Also having a warehouse full of these for sale at $120/ea might actually depress demand where a limited edition could spur demand. I've paid several hundred already for a book that I might not own if it was readily available in stock at the local bookstore. Just because I knew I wanted the book sometime and this was one of only limited chances to get it.

Well, that sounds like a completely irrational way to run a publishing business.
But what do I know I guess.

that is why I wrote this.

Why a reprint wasn't done until 2018 I have no idea. And why the second printing only had limited copies as well, I have no idea. And why a third printing didn't happen until 2025 I have no idea.

[ken_sylvania]

Average annual sales x 10.

Any publisher should have that information.

Publisher only had it for sale new for maybe six months in the last 15 years. They know exactly how many they sold during that time, but average annual sales isn't a useful metric.
Also having a warehouse full of these for sale at $120/ea might actually depress demand where a limited edition could spur demand. I've paid several hundred already for a book that I might not own if it was readily available in stock at the local bookstore. Just because I knew I wanted the book sometime and this was one of only limited chances to get it.

Well, that sounds like a completely irrational way to run a publishing business.

But what do I know I guess.

I'd say you don't know much about the book "The Earth is the Lord's" and its history.
I wasn't implying that the publisher is intentionally limiting supply, just mentioning one of the reasons why using the volume sold of the one and only printing of the book in the last 15 to 20 years isn't a solid way of determining how many could be sold over the next ten years.
There are/were other reasons not related to whether a second printing could be financially successful that delayed the second printing to 2018.