Picolibrary: A Small Press
novalis.org
novalis.org
When Grayson's _Traditional Archery from Six Continents_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1662236.Traditional_Arch... went out of print, I actually found it more palatable to buy the rights and re-print it.
Since then, I attempted that with Tolkien's _Old English Exodus_ but was rebuffed on the grounds that I was a "Tolkien Nut" and not an academic --- that text has since been reprinted by Harper Collins in a #2 box set, which I anxiously pre-ordered and waited for, only to find that from the Select Bibliography to then end of the re-set poem (22 pages) there were almost as many typos (20) on a quick first reading:
https://old.reddit.com/r/OldEnglish/comments/1vyly9o/could_s...
really wish all authors did as DEK and offered a bounty on typos... I could use a check for $51.20 even if it wouldn't fully offset the cost of the boxed set (though arguably, I should sell the other 4 books as dupes of texts I already own).
The only wrinkle was I failed to communicate clearly that I wanted to do a hardcover reprint and they assumed I was doing a softcover (apparently rights are different?) but they decided that the modest quantity I wanted (100) was okay for hardcover (within the variance of unprinted copies from first run?) and allowed it.
I contacted a (sort of) local printer with a digital press to send the files, proofed them, then once approved and printed, I drove in my truck and picked them up (should have parked closer, a couple of boxes took a tumble), stored them in my entry closet and sold them over the course of a couple of years, sending a statement and check each year until the last copy I was selling was sold and I closed the books.
The notable afterthought was that I should have bought used copies at the price that they were then set at by my re-issue and re-sold them after, but I couldn't bring myself to be quite that mercenary.
I am always fascinated by the whole tension of copyright, publishing costs, and the lost knowledge due to the gap between the two.
Print $3,500 as two checks.
Books sold for $70 ea. and if sold on Amazon had $12.83 for their fees.
Sold a few in person, handed out too many for marketing, and did okay on shipping 'cause I re-used packaging. In the end, came out ahead, and would be willing to revisit this sort of thing in the future.
not looking forward to the future where the things you can do on the computer are constrained by fear of breaking copyright in this way. The more AI reviewing stuff is put into processes we use the more annoying this will become. These AI labs are just really out there sucking up all our shared culture and then pulling up the ladder behind them.
End up using Grok for most of these tasks as it is dialed back a bit in that regard.
One which I usually bring up is:
https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.htm...
but contrast that with:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-elements-by-theodore-gray/...