Algorithms, boo

a sad story about a big order

A few years ago, we published a book that did better than we expected. That was fun! We made POD copies to deal with demand in the short term, and ordered a second, and then third, printing to take over once fresh copies arrived from the printer (POD copies, or print on demand, are more expensive than traditional offset printing, so we like to use it sparingly).

This book was one title in a series; we had done previous books in the series, and we estimated sales based on those, more or less. It did better than we expected because we ran the table on media, got some really strong reviews, and it was about Chicago, by far the most populous city in our stable.

In a few months, we are publishing the next book in that same series. It is about a much less populous city. We project it will do about as well as the first ones, and not the most recent one, about Chicago, which smashed expectations.

But this title is proving to be a problem, precisely because of the success of the Chicago …