The next three months will be spent printing Byzantium’s next book, Textile Designs on Paper: An Archive from
Early 19th-Century France. It’s slated for publication in the fall. While I’m
doing that, I’ll be working on a few book projects for HM. One is another
collaboration with Briony Morrow-Cribbs. I’m going to be updating this blog
only every three months, so look for some news April 1 (and we’ll see then if
it’s a joke).
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Just about any physical book (or car, or shoe,
or...) is limited in quantity because at some point the production line gets
turned off. The only exception with books I can think of is POD. If you’re
going to make the limitation part of the book’s promotion – only
5,000 copies produced! – it really should be
stated somewhere in the book itself. Some people sneeringly label this “manufactured
rarity,” and in may cases rightly so: the limitation is governed entirely by
how many copies the publisher thinks will sell. There is nothing about the
production process that imposes a limit.
I’m interested in the
history of books that explicitly state how many copies were printed. The
earliest statement I’ve found is from the 18th century, and the limitation was
determined by the number of subscribers, so not a production constraint. Some
types of intaglio plates begin to deteriorate after some number of impressions
have been pulled, and these prints are the true first examples of a production
limitation in publishing/printing I know of. This is why for some kinds of intaglio prints,
collectors prefer low numbers, based on the assumption that the edition number
corresponds with that copy’s place in the printing sequence.
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At HM, editions have
always been limited by the number of impressions I can pull in a day (and the
subset of that number that aren’t flawed in some way). I could print more if I
used a press that did the inking and printing for me, but I don’t want to be
that kind of printer. Because I print damp, a sheet needs to be worked off over
a maximum of three days; that’s how long it retains a reasonably consistent
level of dampness. (Redamping is not recommended, as there can be registration
issues. Plus it’s just a lot more work.) So I have one day to complete each
side, and a third for any extra runs (i.e. color). The actual materials I’m
printing with – the type and paper – could produce hundreds more copies; the
limitation is how much work I can accomplish in a day.
For the recent Dunwich
project, the limitation was based on this production limit, and also by the
intaglio prints included. While the plates were steel faced to reduce wear from
each impression, deterioriation/degradation of the image still becomes an issue
after a certain point. So there were practical/physical limitations to how many
copies could have been in the edition. If I was a better or faster printer (the
two do not really cohabit well) the edition could have been 10 or maybe even 20
more, but not double. And I’m not a better or faster printer, so 50 (+ 6 h.c.)
was the limit.
All of which is to say, I
wonder at people who tout something as being a “limited edition” but then don’t
bother to state what the edition is, or do so in some completely ephemeral way.
I purchased David Lynch’s Crazy Clown Time when it came out. Stuck to
the shrink wrap was a small sticker stating this was copy 0273 of 2,000, the number having been printed with some kind of auto-mechanism.
There was no mention of the limitation inside the case or (separate) book. Why
bother? (FYI I bought it because I’d enjoyed Lynch’s other albums, especially Big
Dream, but Crazy Clown was something else and I sold it, with the
sticker preserved in a glassine envelope...)
Here’s a more recent example: Cursed is a collection of Charlie Engman’s AI-generated images. Interesting and provocative work, very cool. A signed edition is available from the publisher, for a paltry £5 premium. But his signature is on a little slip of paper tucked into the back of the book! Practically like an erratum! At the very least put it at the front, and if you aren’t going to spring for an entire leaf, at least maybe mount the signed plate on the title page? At least they didn’t call it a limited edition. 
The size of an edition matters. There is no denying that a smaller edition run appeals to many collectors. That’s a strategic business decision, not a production constraint. What’s the upper limit for calling something a limited edition before it becomes meaningless? I don’t know. Five thousand copies of a book signed by Bob Dylan probably is legitimate (too bad he didn’t actually sign them); 5,000 copies of your self-published first novel would be questionable (even if not labelled a limited edition).
This expanded version of
Eno & Lanois’ Appolo album does a little better, with copies number
auto-printed on the back. But there’s still the question of whether an “edition”
of 12,000 is worthy of numbering, or even stating.
Here’s a more recent example: Cursed is a collection of Charlie Engman’s AI-generated images. Interesting and provocative work, very cool. A signed edition is available from the publisher, for a paltry £5 premium. But his signature is on a little slip of paper tucked into the back of the book! Practically like an erratum! At the very least put it at the front, and if you aren’t going to spring for an entire leaf, at least maybe mount the signed plate on the title page? At least they didn’t call it a limited edition.
The size of an edition matters. There is no denying that a smaller edition run appeals to many collectors. That’s a strategic business decision, not a production constraint. What’s the upper limit for calling something a limited edition before it becomes meaningless? I don’t know. Five thousand copies of a book signed by Bob Dylan probably is legitimate (too bad he didn’t actually sign them); 5,000 copies of your self-published first novel would be questionable (even if not labelled a limited edition).
Whatever the reasons a
publisher claims for publishing a book as a “limited edition,”, there is an
iterative calculation of capital costs, time (labor), anticipated interest
(market), and what the book’s combined elements objectively could demand in the
current market. Everyone does the math differently, and I suspect the only
common element is that people who are actual private printers (vs enterprises
issuing “fine press” books produced under contract by others) end up earning a
paltry hourly wage.
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I wrote most of this post
before xmess. On December 27 The NY Times published this
article about trade publishers discovering the marketing appeal of “deluxe
limited editions.” These boutique lines from major commercial publishers, and a
number of smaller imprints that have emerged over the past decade or two, have
simply found profitable ways to superficially adopt the mantle of fine press
printing without getting their hands inky. It’s no different than all the
commercial Kelmscott-knock-off limited editions that proliferated in American
and English publishing a century ago. No one confused them for the things they
were aping.
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The text of colophons is a
related topic that also interests me. The next post might be about colophons.
