Lost Art Press

On Discontinued Books

Posted on by Lost Art Press
Look how fancy we are. A metal sign (from Covington’s Sign Works/Todd Engraving company).

I don’t like to take books out of print. In fact, we have spent the last 16 years trying like hell to keep everything possible in print.

Recently, we took “The Solution at Hand” out of print, and our email lit up with people asking “why?” Interestingly, many of these people had not bought the book and were disappointed they couldn’t buy a copy. Which is one of the reasons books go out of print.

There are many reasons books are discontinued. Here are the common ones.

  1. The book is a translation or reprint from another publisher (think “Grandpa’s Workshop”). When you buy foreign rights, it’s typically for five years. After that you have to re-up with a new and expensive advance. You do the math and realize you won’t make a profit until 10 years, so….
  2. The author dies or becomes incapacitated. And the author’s literary heirs don’t want the book to continue in print.
  3. The book stops selling. And it gets to the point where you lose money every month paying for storage. 

To reduce our storage fees (and get more control over our operations), we bought the Anthe building in downtown Covington, an old factory. According to the inventory analysis we did, we had plenty of room on the first and second floors for our books.

Someone, somewhere made a mistake.

We were told we had three semi loads of books. After we unloaded the third semi, we sighed with relief. Everything fit, barely. Then John got a phone call. There were two more semis coming.

We don’t have elevator access to the third floor (yet), so we had to rent storage lockers to hold the 40 pallets of books on the last two semis. 

So we are in a bit of a bind right now. Until we get the third floor ready for storage, we barely have any room to move. We have pallets of new titles on the way. “Cricket Tables” by Derek Jones should be here in the next two weeks. 

Where are we going to put them?

And that’s another reason we have to discontinue books. John and I are working on a lot of ideas that should get us the space we need. But until then, we have to be careful. Otherwise, I’ll end up storing books under every bed, chair and table in my house – just like we did in the beginning years of this company.

So if I had any advice for our customers it’s this: If there’s a book you want to own someday, buy it now. I am still trying like hell to keep all our titles in print, but right now it’s an almost impossible task.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Some of you have asked if we could sell the pdfs of discontinued books. Many times the contracts we sign make that impossible. But it might be possible for some titles. So thanks for that suggestion.

42 thoughts on “On Discontinued Books”

  1. You’re victims of your own success. I’m sorry you’ve got hard decisions. LAP has been nothing but wonderfulness for me since you started. 16 years? That’s a lot of wonderfulness. It should be nothing but sunshine and unicorns for you, too. Life just ain’t like that.

    I started woodworking after Stanley had pretty much disappeared, but Record had a very full line of tools. They still made compass planes! But not for long. Everything was discontinued, fairly soon. That sort of shaped my buying habits. When Lie Nielsen started, I snapped up tools as they debuted. Not every single one. But those I knew I could actually use, even if not right away. I was shaped by tool scarcity.

    Good furniture books go out of print, fast. And never go back in print. And get crazy, stupid expensive. I still kick myself for not buying Master Craftsmen of Newprt in time, but I was broke. Last year I actually made a list, and a pile, of all your books, and I’m happy to say I have them all. And a lot of shirts. Half of the tools. None of the hats or posters.

    Kids, don’t wait. Don’t get shut out. Buy that book today.

  2. For those of you who still want a copy of Robert Wearing’s book, The Solution at Hand, it is still available for sale at Highland Woodworking (highlandwoodworking.com) in Georgia, for $28, and at Lee Valley (leevalley.com) for $25. (It’s also available on used websites, like abebooks.com and alibris.com), but for much more About the discontinuation of books, some of us, I’m sure, wish we’d know a little in advance which books you might be thinking about discontinuing. Fortunately, I have both books you decided to discontinue (when, exactly, did you decide?), and now I’m aware I need to buy some more books, but I have to pace myself or I’ll spend more than I should at one moment. So having a sense of what is going out of print when would be so much appreciated. Thanks, Garret

    1. I agree with Garret here, a little advance notice for those of us who have to watch our spending would greatly be appreciated so we know when the window of opportunity is closing for certain books.

      Thanks for pointing us in the direction of alternative stock, do you know the name of the other discontinued book?

      Thanks,
      Jacob

      1. The other discontinued book is the Stanley Tools Catalog, No. 34. But from what I remember, although a link is not displayed on its webpage, Chris and Megan said they could make a free PDF available. I’m not sure if that offer still applies (or if I’m remembering correctly).

  6. I always used to marvel at the waste of big government and business.
    Now I understand how this happens when even a small business has excess inventory. Then I look around at my stuff and realize I’m no different.

  7. On the subject of discontinued books, just look at Amazon or ebay and see that sellers of used books will be asking two, three or four times what a book cost when it was newly published. If it was an expensive book to begin with, and was not a large original issue due to the subject, only someone with very deep pockets can afford to own it. The seller often has little or no investment and can simply wait for a buyer who decides they just have to have it. These discontinued books are not antiques or particularly rare by the usual standards.

  8. I love your commitment to printing and binding high-quality, physical books, but I’ll never buy a physical copy because I just can’t justify the difficulty of storing physical books. I have even less warehouse space than you do 🙂

    To those of us not interested in accumulating a physical library, your PDFs are a godsend. And your FREE PDF of the stick chair book?!?!? I’ve downloaded it multiple times, for some reason, I love it so much.

    A humble idea:

    I would be VERY TEMPTED to sign up for an annual Lost Art Press subscription of $50 to $100 that would get me access to any of your titles. Convenient for me and possibly more economical/profitable for you. And we wouldn’t have to worry about stuff going out of print or high fees putting you out of business. Wouldn’t help the tool business of course, except that you could stock more tools if you didn’t have so many books.

    I know such a service comes with it’s own headaches and lacks the timeless appeal of the printed word. But for me, it’s the content of what you do that is more important.

  9. Yet another way the publishing industry got screwed over in 1979 in the US vs. Thor Power Tool decision, which negatively affected how excess inventory could be written down on taxes.

  10. “…Recently, we took “The Solution at Hand” out of print, and our email lit up with people asking “why?” Interestingly, many of these people had not bought the book and were disappointed they couldn’t buy a copy. Which is one of the reasons books go out of print…”

    There are a whole bunch of LAP books on my buy list but every time a new book comes out, my buy list gets longer and reshuffled. I’m sure this is happening to more people than just me but it might explain why some books just sit. It’s not that nobody wants them it’s just that you have so many good products that we have to prioritize. (Same scenario with Lie-Nielsen tools.)

    Plus when you and John first started you did say none of your books would go out of print. I’ve been operating under that assumption in my buy list. I can see why the Book of Plates and Grandpa’s Workshop were stopped and I can also understand the business reason as you explained above. Sometimes to stay in business or to keep it profitable, earlier promises have to be broken. I get that and I’m sure others do too.

    This isn’t a criticism, just offering a possible explanation on why books sit. I think John Cashman summed it up perfectly above when he said you are victims of your own success. You have so many good products and your customers only have limited funds.

    1. Hi Patrick,

      Thanks for your thoughts. Consider this your way-advance notice that the following books will likely go out of print (or fall out of our catalog) in the coming year or two (I can’t be more exact because it depends on sales).

      1. Both of Jogge’s books. Those books have licenses that expire.
      2. Both of Landis’s books. Slow sales cannot justify another print run.
      3. “The Welsh Stick Chair: A Visual Record.” I don’t know if Tim and Betsan will do another run of this book. So its future is uncertain.
      4. “Honest Labour.” Again, a very slow seller. Even a tiny press run would mean we would hold onto stock for more than a decade.

      C

      1. Thanks Chris. Jogge’s books just made it to the top of the list. Just in time for Christmas. 🙂

      2. Thank you, Chris for this information! If I could also propose another request, that people are notified about what you’re possibly planning of taking out of production in the Crucible Tools part of the business. Lie-Nielsen sometimes suddenly stops producing a very valuable tool (like their drawknives) and while these drawknives, for instance, are still shown on their website, when I was able to purchase mine (got a phone call from them that they were about to produce their last batch), it was only luck that I was. There are several Crucible tools I’m going to try to buy soon (like your planing stop–perhaps two) and I hope they won’t be put out of production. Thank you for all of what you do!

        1. It’s not easy to predict what is going to happen with any given tool. When we run out, we usually plan to make more. But then we have trouble with suppliers, or labor shortages, or price increases that make them unviable or something else. And so we can’t make more. And that might take a year to resolve.

          We don’t have any tools that we plan to take out of production. But can I find someone to make our Bench Squares when we run out? I don’t know. I hope so.

      3. I can understand why the Landis books are slow sellers. Though they are wonderful books, they’ve been around a long time, and the market might just have been saturated. But the Jogge and Honest Labour books are treasures. People really should be all over those.

      4. Theschwarz uses FOMO. It’s super effective!

        Somehow, I didn’t know about “The Welsh Stick Chair: A Visual Record”, but now it’s in my shopping cart along with two other books I’ll pay you to store at my house.

      5. Well… My credit card just melted a little bit. Glad I already had a couple of those!

      6. Thank you for this, Chris. My cart total was $767 after I added all the books I want and don’t yet own. This smaller list is much more manageable, but I’ll keep working on the bigger list too. The “problem” is I want all the books.

      8. After reading the description for “Honest Labour”, the articles with the Kara’s context, this is a title too good to resist.

  11. You’ve pretty much filled up LAP’s new building. That’s sort of funny and cool at the same time. Helps put in perspective your success.

    Wonder if this is possible for out of print books. If there is some minium number you need to order from printer/binder, maybe you do like a Woodpecker’s one time tool (I don’t own any by the way) and do preorders. Make it clear to those ordering a certain minimum needs to be reached or orders won’t happen. Only thing I can think of other than the PDF idea.

      1. I don’t quite get the collector mentality, especially when it’s done with it being an “investment.” All of my LAP books are first editions, first printings. Who cares? I’ll never be the one to sell them. But I think some like to think in terms of future dollars, rather than the non-monetary value.

      2. I with Woodpeckers and Bridge City. I just see it as a way of potentially getting books that don’t sell well into hands of folks who may want them from time to time. Unless there is some sort of print on demand service that could be done that could provide the quality of LAP books.

        1. A POX UPON YOU AND YOUR HOUSE!! Print on demand should be renamed. You would have better luck with hot melt glue and a disposable inkjet printer. At least then you would have some control over how much actual binding is accomplished with the glue.

          Yes, I feel strongly about piss on demand books. I stick around for the woodworking. When Chris talks about sewn signatures and end boards, my eyes gloss over. The stuff he prints lasts and survives multiple trips to the woodshed (figurative and literal). Every POD title I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with ended with me redoing it with plastic combs and a binding machine at work. I no longer have access to the plastic binding machine, so no more POD codswallop.

          Kudos to you if your experience is different.

  12. Thanks for the update! This is why I bought the Stick Chair Book even though I’m not retiring completely for another few years…..wanted to make sure it didn’t go out of print!

  13. I hate to ask this on this forum (but I’m also loath to ask people at Lie-Nielsen, for fear of seeming gauche): Does anyone know the future of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks once Thomas Lie-Nielsen is no longer with the business? Without Chris, John, and Megan, Lost Art Press might be no longer, so without Thomas Lie-Nielsen, is Lie-Nielsen Toolworks also no longer? Thanks.

    1. I can’t speak to any other toolmaker or publisher. That’s their business. We have a plan for LAP. It might work great. It might not. I won’t care, because I’ll be worm food. There is only so much you can ask of the living or the dead.

      1. Well, I guess I should get as many of my desired Lie-Nielsen tools as soon as I can. (And of the great Lost Art Press books.) But I must insist, Chris, that you’ll be more than worm food. You’ll be the inspirational original you’ve been to so many, for so long and will continue to be, whether you’ll care, as worm food, or not.

  14. I just bought The Solution At Hand from Highland, thanks Garret for the reference. And Honest Labour is a wonderful book. I bought it about a year ago and pick it up from time to time to read a couple article entries. By design, this will take me a few years to read through.

    I’ve got several LAP book, every one of them a gem. Thanks Chris, John, Megan and others for putting them out there.

  15. Wow, one of those situations where there a gap between what the warehouse computer system says and what exists in reality. Hell of a gap size! My commiserations to you all.

  16. Have book fair! Good excuse to throw a big Covington party! My son lives just across the river in downtown Cinci. I d come!

  17. Chris:
    Maybe you should put a printing press on the third floor of the Anthe building. I’m sure Fitz could run it in her spare time.

  18. Honest Labour’s wisdom applies to my IT work as much as my hobby woodworking. It’s inspiring and is a pleasure to read. Thank you for sharing it.

  19. In my case, I made my first pocket screw hole about a year ago and took my first shaving with a hand plane last spring. So I’m quite late to the party and trying to catch up! I’ve been reading the LAP blog from the beginning and realize I have missed many things – from monkey faces to “Grandpa’s Workshop” to deluxe Roubo editions – and this was the first time I’d heard of “The Solution At Hand”! I was happy to find a copy at Lee Valley along with a copy of “Grandpa’s Workshop”. And I’ve moved “Honest Labour” to the top of my list… thanks for all the wisdom you’ve collected and made available. It’s quite a firehose for a newbie.

    1. I used to read Grandpa’s Workshop to my daughter. She loved the pictures. Still hates anything to do with the shop. Can’t blame a dad for trying. 🙂

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