Ron when the EC was talking about putting out a new record book a year or so ago there were some good suggestions made that would help with the cost. Here's what I remember along with some I just thought up myself.
1. One idea was to limit the number of entries in the printed version to say the top 50, 100 or even 250 in a class. The person who enters an animal receives a certificate saying where their animal scores in the all time list. So they have a erecord. The problem in a complete book is when you have several hundred (thousand ?) entries in a category; that runs into a lot of paper. I've got a little book of exotics that was put out a few years ago (by Templeton ?)and I believe it only contained the top 50. Below some number like that or at say below the top 100 it has little interest to anyone other then the person that shot the animal.
2. Another suggestion (which I'm not sure was made at the meeting) might be to have a record book such as in suggestion #1, and have a second "complete" record book which is on disk or DVD. That way the person could view the complete record book on their home computer, but we wouldn't have to spend a bundle to do it.
3. A third suggestion of course would be to get advertising for either one, or two or both. That might defray a portion of the cost.
4. Another suggestion is to take orders and charge (perhaps lower for pre-orders). When the last record book was printed it was given out for free. It was soft bound, but still kind of neat. I don't think that most people would object to paying a nominal price for even a softbound record book. Five bucks ($7.50, $10) each and a minimal amount of advertising would pretty well reach the $6,000 goal. If the record book was limited to say the top 50 in each class, we might actually get it printed for less then $6,000 and show a profit. Disc/DVDs could similarly be sold and would be almost pure profit.
5. Finally, it was discussed bringing out a special (perhaps bound) ED FOREMAN MEMORIAL addition at the same time as the other. I know that Larry Z gave Curtis $25 to get on the list to get one of these. Again, don't know how much it would cost to do this, but a special collectors limited edition (with advertising) might help subsidize the mass market printing.
6. Final thought Membership is someplace around 900, but I'd say print 500 or so extra. That wouldn't cost much more (maybe $1 to $2) per copy. We could probably recoup that cost over the next year and we could give these to friends of LSBA. Besides if it takes 10 or more years before we put out the next record book, then we certainly would have sold out long before.
Just a few ideas.
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