I Street Press 2018-2019 Annual Report And Catalog of Titles Copyright © 2019, Sacramento Public Library Authority Cover Design by Tenaya Jacobson Interior Layout and Design by Gerald F. Ward Printed in the United States Sacramento Public Library I Street Press 828 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814 [email protected] I Street Press is a service of the Sacramento Public Library and is not a separate publishing entity. High-quality, perfect-bound paperback printing is provided. Marketing, editing, design and distribution services are not currently offered. Espresso Book Machine I Street Press Sterling Digibinder Plus and Triumph 5255 Automatic Paper Cutter I Street Press Table of Contents Introduction iii I Street Press iv Authors and Titles: vii Books Printed: vii Programming and Attendance: viii Publishing Appointments: ix Receipts: x Article (by Gerald F. Ward) xi 2018-2019 Catalog of Titles 1 In Memory of Bernard Marks 2 Arts and Crafts 6 Biography 7 Business 18 Children’s Literature 18 Christianity 21 Description and Travel 22 Engineering 22 Fiction 23 Games 27 History 27 National Parks 31 Pamphlets 32 Personal Development 33 Poetry 33 Political Science 37 Relationships 38 Spanish 39 Writing 40 Index 41 i Introduction It is with great pleasure the Sacramento Public Library presents the 2018-2019 accomplishments of the I Street Press to the Sacramento Public Library Authority Board. During the previous year, some significant changes occurred that impacted the service of the I Street Press to the local author community and those served by the Sacramento Public Library. The I Street Press has acquired new equipment and substantially reduced the cost of printing books for local authors. To be fair, the local author geography for the I Street Press ranges from Los Angeles to Seattle, Wash., and from Hawaii to Denver, Colo. The I Street Press has helped authors from many states self-publish their books, including Hawaii, Washington, Arizona and Colorado. In the 2018-2019 year, I Street Press helped 64 new authors self-publish their books. As of the end of June 2019, there were 555 titles by 424 authors in the I Street Press inventory. This is significant, showing a local need for the service of SPLA for the I Street Press. This is an increase of 94 titles and 64 authors over the last year. I would like to thank the following people for helping print books on the I Street Press: Devon McMindes David Henson Melissa Lopez Megan Civitello, Natalye Abuan Melani Adachi Jamie Paiva Nick Parker Joshua Kim Michelle Osborne Kirsten Quong Emily Crofoot iii I Street Press I Street Press began operation in October of 2011, moving into full book production by May of 2012. The I Street Press is a fee-based service of the Sacramento Public Library Authority (SPLA). Between October 2011 and July 2018, the I Street Press used an Espresso Book Machine (EBM), created by Ondemandbooks.com (ODB). During that time, the EBM was maintained by Xerox with a monthly contract. At the end of June 2018, Xerox, stating that the EBM had reached its end-of-life, unilaterally dropped the maintenance agreement with SPLA on the EBM. While the EBM had been running well for the last several years, right after Xerox dropped the maintenance contract the machine stopped working. Initially, staff thought that the I Street Press could use the EBM for at least part of the fiscal 2018-2019 year, without paying for a maintenance agreement. The maintenance agreement with Xerox and ODB cost a minimum of $2,000 and up to $2,700 per month. The maintenance agreement on the EBM was $1,700 per month, with a $322.10 per- month maintenance agreement for the Xerox 4112 printer, and a $1.00-per-book printing charge remitted to ODB. After Xerox dropped the agreement, the only cost, other than materials, associated with the EBM was a per-book charge sent to ODB. Knowing that the EBM was on its last legs, staff began researching replacement equipment. Once the EBM stopped working, the process was accelerated and replacement equipment was purchased by the middle of August 2018. The I Street Press was back into full production by Sept. 1, 2018. Replacing the equipment used by the I Street Press allowed for a significant reduction in the cost of producing each book. With the EBM, the I Street Press charged, after a one-time set-up fee, $6 per book and 3 cents per page, plus tax where applicable. These receipts covered the materials for printing books, and the maintenance fees for the equipment, plus the per-book charge to ODB. With the installation of the new equipment, the I Street Press no longer had to charge to pay for the maintenance agreements and monthly book charge. Consequently, the I Street Press lowered its per-book charge to $4 per book and 2.5 cents per page. This reduced the cost of printing a book by roughly 36%. The EBM was purchased with a California State Library LSTA grant. The new equipment was purchased with monies budgeted to the I Street Press. The cost of the new equipment was less than 20% of the original cost of the EBM. In June of 2019, the I Street Press acquired a Toshiba color printer and began producing books with full-color interior pages. iv Initial Costs for the EBM (in 2011) ODB Espresso Book Machine with tax $123,912.50 Full Service on EBM: $1700.00 per $20,400.00 month, 20,400.00 per year (cost did not increase each year Xerox 4112 with tax $32,378.00 Full Service on Xerox 4112: 200.00 per $2,400.00 month (last year cost of 322.10 per month, increased each year to final cost) Initial Consulting charge for training $5,965.00 Total first year cost $185,055.50 New Equipment Costs (2018-19) Sterling Digibinder Plus ($13,959.00), $14,344.95 plus shipping and 10 pounds of glue Triumph 5255 automatic paper cutter $7,579.00 Extra Blade and cut sticks $500.00 Toshiba 6506ACT (WiZiX) Printer $14,183.17 with tax, $347.50 per month, 30,000 page minimum maintenance agreement (5,000 color and 25,000 B&W) plus per page costs at 0.05 cents for color and 0.0039 cents for B&W overage. Epson P-600 Cover printer $800.00 Total first year cost $37,397.12 v Classes and Information Sessions Prospective authors attend a free information session, presented twice a month, to learn what the I Street Press can and cannot do for them in helping them self-publish their book. After the session, the I Street Press staff takes appointments with individual authors to assess their work to ensure that the formatted documents can be printed by the I Street Press. Books printed may be for individual distribution to family and friends, or sold through retail outlets, online and brick- and-mortar stores. Finances Structured fees are set to meet the hard costs of producing a book. These fees include one of three set-up fees, per-book costs, extra services (e.g., help with cover design, ISBN, barcode, LCCN), plus tax. Currently, the costs associated in running the I Street Press include per-book charges, per-page charges, and cost of materials and equipment. After the purchase of the current equipment, there are no fixed costs. Evaluation There are a number of measurements used for evaluating the success of the I Street Press. These measurements include: number of authors using the I Street Press number of titles uploaded number of physical books printed programming and attendance statistics publishing appointments receipts for services rendered vi Authors and Titles: There are 545 titles by 430 authors in the I Street Press inventory. Subjects for books include fiction, biography, self-help, poetry, religion, local history, children’s books, college textbooks and senior projects. Languages are not limited to English, but include Spanish, German, Portuguese, Finnish and Farsi. The number of copies of each title printed range from one to hundreds. Books Printed: I Street Press has printed a total of 31,494 books. Average number of books printed per fiscal year is 3,499. Total FY 2011-2012 1,788 Total FY 2012-2013 4,499 Total FY 2013-2014 4,561 Total FY 2014-2015 3,785 Total FY 2015-2016 4,582 Total FY 2016-2017 4,468 Total FY 2017-2018 3,212 Total FY 2018-2019 4,599 Total 31,494 vii Programming and Attendance: Since its inception, the I Street Press has presented the services offered by SPL to more than 2,719 people. Beginning in 2013 and continuing through this year, I Street Press staff offered tours of the publishing process, traveled to off-site locations to speak with writers’ groups, and began offering classes on formatting the book and cover using MS Word, in addition to the information sessions. Programming and attendance has steadily increased since inception. Average number of people attending a program per fiscal year is 340. Total FY 2011-2012 406 Total FY 2012-2013 354 Total FY 2013-2014 544 Total FY 2014-2015 278 Total FY 2015-2016 385 Total FY 2016-2017 365 Total FY 2017-2018 217 Total FY 2018-2019 170 Total 2,719 viii Publishing Appointments: The number of publishing appointments is proportional to the number of authors and titles represented within the I Street Press inventory. Since its inception, the I Street Press has held 2,307 appointments, each lasting an average of one hour. Often, an author will have two or more appointments before finishing and self-publishing his or her book.