In Other Rings: My Broadway Continues to Sell

Royalty statements from publishers  are at their most compelling when issued nearest to publication, when sales, if there are to be many, surge.  Gradually, they turn to token accounts as the years go by and sales naturally wane. 

But sometimes, sales can surprise you delightfully,  as when yesterday I received my semi-annual royalty report from McFarland & Company for Broadway Musicals: A Hundred Year History, which came out nearly 20 years ago. The book has continued to sell over the years, though the last half of last year gave me a big lift: Nearly 50 copies sold an no returns.  And they aren’t giving it away: $49.00 for both the paper and e-reader editions.  Used copies from other vendors are selling for from $35 to $146.

I have come to believe that if people really want a book, they will pay almost any price.  But you can’t give away a book that nobody much cares about. I have lived through both ends of the spectrum.

The creation of Broadway Musicals followed a decades long journey, begun the early 1990s, when I was collecting, listening to and grading original cast albums.  Since the year 2000 was conveniently up ahead, I began to see a possible book, focusing on cast albums through the century.  My working title became Broadway Scores: A Century of Musicals in Review.  McFarland would revise.

Landing a contract from McFarland marked a big turning point in my life. For now I had embarked on another subject away from the big tops.  This was when landing a contract — from a traditional publisher — was tantamount to landing in a Broadway show. You had a feeling of being discovered, of your work being validated by the pros back east --- that's where most of them were. What a thrill it was, seasons earlier,  to open a parcel from A.S. Barnes & Co. and discover, inside, my first book contract -- for Behind the Big Top!

Today, anybody can publish a book, which I think is a good thing, but no longer do I dare ask “and who is your publisher?”,  not wanting to broach a sensitive subject.  Oh, how more vital and tremendously exciting it was when an author had to find a real publisher. 

Broadway Musicals drew very good notices, though none from major media.  And not a single consumer review.

In one of my early royalty reports, came a stipend for some kind of a subsidiary sale.  It turned out, when I dug deeper, that one of my chapters, The Roads He Didn’t Take, about Stephen Sondheim, was reprinted in full in Gale’s annual Drama Criticism, an academic book that each year profiles the work of four or five major writers.  This I proudly regard as high validation.

Broadway Musicals comes third for me in sales, behind Behind the Big Top, and Big  Top Boss; John Ringling North and the Circus, which share a virtual tie. However, if you factor in discounted paperback copies, Big Top Boss is king, with nearly 4,000 copies sold.

So, once again, after maybe 10 years now, I will read my own Broadway Musicals. Of course, when you know others are reading you, it does make your own read more enjoyable.  I plead human.